


Compulsion (Hearts and Guts)

by Black_throatedBlue



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Choices, Ep 4x01, Ep 4x06, Ep 4x07, Episode Tag, F/M, Guilt, Honor, Marriage, Missing Scene, Temptation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-17
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-02-25 16:47:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 23,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2629055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Black_throatedBlue/pseuds/Black_throatedBlue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"To choose her would be the weak thing, the selfish thing, the happy thing." </p><p>Robin never really had a choice. (OQ 4x01; 4x06-4x07 Robin-centric.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Guts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "To choose her would be the weak thing, the selfish thing, the happy thing." 4x01.

 

* * *

 

_"Robin," Friar Tuck says. "You have to stop this, Roland needs you. Marian's death wasn't your fault, there was nothing you could do."_

 

_"But it was," Robin says flatly, because there must have been._

 

* * *

 

_She is infamous and terrible, imperious and unapologetic, and he ought to offer her little more than the ceremony she insists upon in that black, vulture-like dress. Yet she leapt forwards to sweep his boy from harm when no one else would, swept away potential fears with a well-placed gift and an incongruously warm (beautiful) smile, and now he finds himself willingly indebted, helplessly intrigued. She stands before him in the snowy dark uncompromising and powerful, as resolved as she will find that he is - he cannot let her stand alone, not when he owes her so much._

 

 _"And you think_ you _can stop her?" the Queen says._

 

_"Maybe," Robin says, "maybe not, but I have to try."_

 

* * *

_("You'll marry me?" Robin asks, heart painful with hope._

 

_"I will," Marian smiles, and the future opens before them.)_

 

* * *

 

Marian is alive.

 

("Marian, please, meet her, she's not at all what you think - "

 

"Wait, were you two... are you two together?"

 

"She's a monster!")

 

Everything's a mess.

 

* * *

 

Robin is almost physically pulled in two when Regina walks away from them, his chest and arms meaning to follow but his feet and head insisting he stay. Marian is lost in a foreign time and Roland is fading fast with emotional upheaval, he _must_ stay, he is needed here, more. Regina is hurt and uncertain and he wants to reassure her almost as much as he wants to be reassured and grounded by her, but she's left at a quick pace and his tether to Marian and Roland limits his reach.

 

His head is a mess most of all, he can barely think straight with it.

 

He looks to Marian and Roland and feels a muffled painful joy that Roland should have taken to Marian so instantly, because how much guilt did he feel for so long, that Marian would never see her child grown and Roland never see his mother at all? How much would he have given, unquestionably, to see Roland doze off wrapped like a monkey around Marian's neck as he does now?

 

But he's wretched with it, too, because Roland took instantly to another woman who even now walks away alone, had clung to her hand and refused to let go and made that unhappy woman smile openly and hopefully. He had smiled too, to see it, and now he is sick with guilt that though he never sought to replace Marian with Regina some small part of him had seen Regina and Roland and _hoped_... even so early, and now it feels like he should say he never meant to replace Regina with Marian, either.

 

He could never have imagined Marian would return but it still feels like a betrayal, of both of them at once, somehow.

 

The sheriff, Emma, gives them a lift back to the forest. It's David that initially offers but with a newborn baby to care for and a truck with limited seating it becomes quickly obvious that Emma would be a better choice to fulfill it, so he accepts gratefully on all of their behalfs and they clamber awkwardly into the back of the yellow snail-like thing and try not to rouse Roland unduly.

 

They drive in silence, Marian hugging Roland to her and staring wide-eyed as they trundle along smooth black roads, Robin staring at her in turn as odd shadows from the glass windows make her features in the dark at once recognisable and wrong. In the front Hook turns his head to glance at Emma occasionally but Emma never seems to turn her head towards him, and no one says a word, Roland's breathing loudest over the engine as it lengthens into lazy sleep. Robin is scarcely used to cars himself and wonders if Marian even knows what it is she sits in, and though she always was (is?) so brave about new things when he reaches out a tentative hand she grips it gratefully and doesn't let go.

 

Eventually they pull over when Emma asks if she has the right spot and Robin answers affirmatively, gravel loud and jostling as they leave the road surface, Marian's fingers tight around Robin's when the car finally comes to a halt and even the engine and gravel noise stops.

 

Robin gets out first (second, climbing over Hook's turned-down seat), and reaches back into the darkness to take Roland from Marian. She passes him, but hesitates, and when Roland fusses and starts to make displeased noises he thinks for a moment she will never let go.

 

"Marian," he says lowly, "it's not a terribly short walk to the camp from here."

 

She lets go and he takes Roland's full weight, taking some comfort from the familiarity of it as he settles his boy against him and feels Roland's arms tighten around his neck reflexively, familiar curls tickling his chin and blocking his view of the ground to the side.

 

"I know," she says, quietly too, emerging from the shadowy interior unsure of her footing, "well, not that, but..."

 

Emma rounds the car and gives Marian a hand stepping over the seat in her long skirt, standing tall on the ground at last, dusting herself off.

 

"How's your head?" Emma asks, and there's some lick of guilt to it that makes Robin's eyes narrow.

 

"It hurts, it's okay," Marian's eyes flick to the side and he remembers this, knows she's hiding other thoughts behind a face of politeness.

 

"If you vomit or anything, you should probably go to the hospital and see Whale, I should've taken you already, really."

 

"I don't know where -"

 

"I know it," Robin says. "If there's a problem I can take her. I've been there before, I know the way."

 

"Well, we'd best be off then," says Hook, making to pass between Robin and the car door to rectify his seating arrangements awkwardly with just one hand.

 

Emma smiles at Marian one last time, troubled and forced, Robin thinks, but with only the headlights and a crescent moon for light it's hard to be sure, and then the two of them are in the car and gone, taking the harsh orange light of the headlights with them in a cascade of pebbles, Robin and his son and his wife left alone at the edge of the forest in the cold.

 

They walk home, Robin leading the way.

 

He can barely talk to Marian, only short pointless nonsense about the route and this new world, the long-forgotten familiarity of her smell and her voice making his mind swim with forgotten memories, ill-fitting and distracting now that he is so old as to be a different person. It exacerbates the strange out-of-body feeling that persists, his legs walking without permission and barely any feedback, and he feels like a ghost floating, or gone back in time, and underlying it all is a constant creeping worry for Regina that he does not even know what he can do with.

 

He looks over, the walk half done in his haze, and Marian cocks her head at him in a half-frown. It shocks him, more than anything else, his facial muscles recognising that expression although his eyes had forgotten it, because this was her expression all along and he has walked it around a world without her in it thinking it was his. This was something she left him, in her death, a muscle memory born of once-closeness, it makes his heart burn with remembered intimacy even despite the aching thought that without this miracle he would never have remembered, such a precious thing nearly lost forever.

 

It is all so odd: he knows himself overjoyed but cannot feel it.

 

* * *

 

_"My father," Neal says, "He saved her... and your son."_

  
_Robin hesitates._

_"Once. He stands at the window, he calls out once," Robin says, because he cannot be ungrateful._

 

* * *

 

When they reach camp there is uproar, bodies crowding away from the fire, full of staring eyes and disbelieving laughter, and he lets it wash over him, relieved that they are home and that Little John and Friar Tuck can be familiar faces for Marian and that for a moment he can try to find his own feet without trying to anchor hers.

 

Little John grabs Marian in a hug and he catches a flash of her grateful face happier and less pinched before Much joins in and she is hidden from him.

 

Friar Tuck grabs him by the shoulder Roland doesn't occupy – Roland already woken by the noise - and says, "Robin, this is... is this?"

 

"I know," he replies, and tries to smile as brightly as the others do because this _is_. Marian is _alive_.

 

"Not sunk in yet?"

 

He huffs a laugh at such understatement, "Not just yet."

 

Then Little John is grabbing him too and Friar Tuck is taking Roland and he finds himself truly swamped in bodies, everyone patting him and grabbing him because Marian has returned, _Marian_ , his long-grieved wife and one of their own, and this, this is a miracle the Merry Men never dream of, and they are all so happy because what an impossible thankful joy, Marian is _alive._ They can none of them hardly believe it, Robin, can you believe it, I don't understand and how can this be, this is _impossible_.

 

It's as cleansing as it is alienating to be amongst the cleaner reactions of his men and he soaks it up that they should so easily emote what seems bundled in knots inside himself. He can hear Roland's high voice loud in excitement telling everyone a confused version of what happened, and when Roland forgets Regina entirely in the retelling Robin feels like something has broken in his heart.

 

It calms down quickly. The Merry Men are a boisterous lot but Roland is young and it's clear that Robin and Marian are a little shell-shocked. Robin takes Roland again just in time as he starts to flag from this second wind and overtired tears threaten, rubbing his back gently and letting him doze again to the familiar sound of his Daddy's voice and heartbeat.

 

He introduces Marian quickly to the newer Merry Men, juggling the need to get Roland in bed with the need to get Marian somewhat settled, but he misremembers and thinks she knows more of the Merry Men than she does, asking Alan-a-Dale to find them some more bedding and get what Marian what she needs from their supplies while he sets Roland down for the night. Alan is left awkward and Marian excluded because they've never actually met before, and surely he should remember that Alan joined in the dark winter days after her death and not her last unhappy autumn?

 

It's an honest mistake and he wouldn't ordinarily dwell on it but it hurts Marian and Robin doesn't even realise until Friar Tuck has already stepped forwards to right it. Intellectually Robin knew he would misremember things but he could have sworn he remembered better than it seems he has. How could he have remembered Marian so poorly?

 

* * *

 

_"That's good, Robin," the street magician says, "more than good enough! Now try it on that woman there."_

 

_"I can be better," Robin says, because he believes it._

 

* * *

 

"We should see about finding you some local clothes," Robin says to Marian when Roland is finally in bed, setting out a second bed in a second lean-to tent nearby.

 

Marian stands over him, arms at a loss at her sides. "You're so quick to reject everything?"

 

He pauses and looks up from his crouch. "I'm not- ...you should be comfortable. The cloth here is better - warm, durable, light – we should find you whatever helps you settle in best."

 

"And that's new clothes, an empty bed and a husband who sleeps with the Evil Queen?"

 

 _Regina_ , he thinks, reminded of Regina's delicacy with naming and framing like this that must underpin it, and then is blind-sided by the casting of their relationship as an affair. His knotted, distant emotions make sense suddenly when he thinks clearly for the first time, stomach dropping with the dread of it, that none of this is over, that he has a wife _and_ a... a Regina, a _soulmate_ , now, and that is a state that cannot hold and it is _him_ that must harm a loved one before any of them can even begin to recover.

 

"She's not evil anymore," he says, finally.

 

He has lived so long with Marian's ghost in his head it is a little weird to have her live her own life, and the argument started at the diner catches light thanks to the fatigue and high emotions running through both of them, the Merry Men by the fire politely pretending not to hear.

 

She is angry and intransigent on the subject of Regina, and the more she lets slip the more he understands what an ordeal she has had so very recently and what shadow the Evil Queen must cast, but it's an unhappy shock to him everytime he argues her pronouncements that Marian sets her jaw and proclaims him misguided, trusts his intentions but not his observance nor his judgement.

 

"People like that don't just _change_ , Robin!" She says, hushing immediately when the bundle of Roland turns over in his sleep. "You know what she's capable of, the horrors she's done: she dragged me all over the land this morning to beg for my life _laughing, s_ he _enjoyed_ it. You don't change that."

 

It's difficult to hear, as it should be. "You remember that I once changed, too? There was a time I was a different sort of man, it _is_ possible."

 

"Not like that! She would have cut my head off and put it on a, a _s-spike,_ Robin. _You_ are not everybody."

 

It's not that he didn't remember that they argued as much as any couple - the ghost Marian in his head had likes and dislikes and certainly would not have always approved of his actions - but the ghost Marian had relied entirely on his perception of the world and her differing conclusions had been softened in memory, always at heart just a familiar echo of his own creation. She had not had this heel-dug resistance, not this failure to listen, and it is frustrating when he is reeling from miracles and each new unhappy revelation.

 

"Nevertheless, it's been a long time, Marian! A lot has changed. You don't understand -"

 

"I do understand! I understand better than you! My son is... She is _not_ you, Robin. She's very beautiful and I know you want to see yourself in her, but she was very beautiful when she meant to kill me and a very good actor, too. She's sadistic!"

 

After such a day it is too much. "You think so little of me? That I'm clouded by a pretty face and a wish?"

 

She sighs, frustrated too. "I don't know what I think of you, anymore."

 

Well, _ouch_.

 

* * *

 

_She is unkind and impatient and immature and sulky, more suited to Roland's age than his own, her logic delightfully straightforward and amusingly self-orientated. It shouldn't bring a smile to his face when she bites at the world so toothlessly but he finds himself hiding smiles all the same. There is persistent life in her that he is truly glad to see after the manner of their meeting and he likes the helpfulness she hides and the efficiency she strives for, likes her snark even when he shouldn't and her humor even when it turns on him. He likes her as she does not, at this moment, seem to like him._

 

_"What are you even still doing here?" the Queen asks, ungrateful to boot._

 

_"What I'm doing here is saving your ass," he says._

 

* * *

He and Marian settle, eventually.

 

They are both disappointed in each other and that is a bitter thing for such a homecoming and the hurt of it will linger for a good while yet, but they are also tired and even as they argue Marian looks displaced and unsettled and Robin is distracted by his impending choice and they both know they should sleep on it and leave deep discussions for the morning.

 

If this had happened at any other time in any other way she would sleep in his arms tonight, reassured of his proximity and reassuring of her continued existence, but his tie to Regina and the nature of the argument mean that will not happen. He watches Marian curl up in a cold bed alone and knows her displacement follows her even into her own home, that she leaves space for him as he has long-learned not to do for her, and looks up expectantly at him for only a second before her expression hardens in new remembrance.

 

He cannot leave her though, not yet. She was dead and now she lives and it seems a dream everytime he looks away, so he sits by her head as she slowly relaxes and tries not to stare too strongly. She _is_ home, in the wet, woody air of this unfamiliar forest, in the hard ground, in the tents, in the fire, in the people, and he hopes they will both soon learn to believe it.

 

She was his home too, once upon a time.

 

"Marian?" he says, some defensive anger low in his gut, some disbelief making his call a question.

 

She twitches into wakefulness, "Hmm, yes?"

 

He is sorry to disrupt her sleep and his face must twist with the pain of his thoughts but he needs to know, he finds he has to know, now, before any more time passes.

 

"Why didn't you come back?"

 

She looks up at him for a second, her serious face alien upside-down, and then she twists and sits up, grasping for his hand, pulling her blankets around her as they fall away with her movement, beautiful features earnest and upset.

 

"I tried," she says, fiercely, "Robin, I tried so hard, you have to believe me. I tried to escape but the Qu..." her eyes flick away, "but I couldn't, not alone, and I begged so hard but nobody would help, and then Leia – Emma - did and I thought, thank you, oh thank you, I could return to you and my _baby_ , but... she hit me and then I was here and it didn't- "

 

And she's crying, sobbing, the dam broken, and he wraps her in his arms and holds on tight and realises he's crying too, and there's a deep bitter anger in her he thinks must stem from her loss of Roland's infanthood, and finally he understands the flick of guilt in Emma's voice and he is angry at her too, briefly, though she had saved Marian's life, and he would have saved Marian from all of this if only he could, deep sorrow in his throat for what she suffered and will still suffer.

 

She clutches at his shoulders and he keeps holding her as though he'll never let her go again, as though it's decided and easy and he has no choice to make, and everything for Marian must be so horrible right now but he can barely believe she is alive and when he reassures himself that she is he is deeply, cathartically angry at her because all the heartbreak and guilt and loss he suffered all this time and she was _alive_. He hates himself that he should blame Marian at all, buries his face in the thick cloud of her soft-brown hair and feels her shudder and sob, and what sort of man does it make him that he should feel such guilty anger at Marian for an unwilling separation but think of Regina's part in this and know only love?

 

He knows Regina isn't the Evil Queen, but he knows Marian didn't do anything wrong either.

 

He does not deserve either of them.

 

* * *

_She holds his wrist in her hands as though his arm is some great heavy weight, and she tells him a story that could change his world, but doesn't. She's so open and vulnerable he feels the weight of her worry more than he felt even the responsibility to guard her physical heart, and he looks into those shining eyes and the strange youthful pride of her posture and knows she worries in vain. She can be sure of him, he recognises her hope and feeling for his own, it all changes nothing because he was already willing to be there. It is a gift he will never feel worthy of._

 

_"Maybe," he says, searching for light words that will not cut her, "it's all about timing."_

 

_The watery gladness of her smile could devastate him._

 

* * *

 

He leaves when Marian is finally asleep.

 

He sits by the fire and would ordinarily prod at the embers but remembers too well another unhappy night (only days ago!) with a much happier ending than lies in his immediate future. He scrapes at the dirt with his feet, instead, stops and studies his hands murky in the firelight, gives up and leaves his hands idle, staring sightlessly at the base of the fire.

 

Little John sits next to him, lost in his own thoughts, but the other men are turned in for the night and there is silence but for the occasional fiery hiss and crackle and the leaves rustling in the trees. It is too incredible that a little over a day ago he thought both wife and best friend irretrievably lost and now he has regained both. He should be ecstatic and he knows it but the shock seems more devastating than miraculous, for all that that is a terrible thought. His choice weighs on him.

 

* * *

_"But that's not fair!" Robin argues, eight years old and appalled._

 

_"The world's not fair," the man says, "Now get on with you, scram!"_

 

* * *

 

He could choose Regina - he _could –_ and no one would stop him. Few would blame him, even, Marian dead for long years now and this promise of Regina so easy and so lovely. He had moved on, it's not fair to make him choose, it makes a lie of every friendly counsel anyone ever made in an effort to help, that Marian was gone, forever, and was never coming back, and that he should look for someone else and feel no guilt about it.

 

Marian would even understand, maybe, or at least eventually. It makes it no easier to contemplate leaving her but she's a good soul and she knows him very well indeed. That it is Regina, she would (be right?) to struggle with; that he had moved on after her death, a conflict she would (try to) resolve sympathetically. He would be here for her, whatever, she would not be fully cast adrift, she will always have his support and his affection, the question is whether his hand alone should waver or follow his heart.

 

He could choose Regina, he knows others would.

 

* * *

_"Robin, stop being such a coward," his friend says, "It's only us here, no one's gonna know, there's no one to tell!"_

 

_"I just don't want to, yeah?" Robin says, because he'll know._

 

* * *

 

Maybe Marian wouldn't be heartbroken at all? Maybe she doesn't...?

 

It's a stupid thought, and useless too, because Robin cannot help but think it wouldn't matter if she wasn't.

 

* * *

 

_"Are you mad?" Friar Tuck says, "Have you any idea how long it takes to dig a grave? We'll barely make it to the graveyard before someone'll be on to us, Arthur would never have expected this."_

 

_"He wanted to be taken home," Robin says, because he cannot let death acquit him._

 

* * *

 

But what _is_ love? Marriage is more than just love, surely, a bedrock of familiarity and trust and support. He can no more forsake Marian in marriage for love than he would forsake Little John in battle for fear. Even if a man cannot control what he feels, surely he can control what he does with it?

 

He loved Marian deeply once and if he acts so again, surely he will remember, with time?

 

* * *

 

_He explores her arm with his fingertips, trailing along her elbow, fingers seeking out bone, bone, muscle, sinew, softened solidity and long smooth dips, uninterrupted skin wherever he might wander. Her movement is graceful and decisive and he cannot not enjoy this skin and these joints given half the opportunity, and lying here with her naked in the aftermath is a perfect one, lazy and warm but not yet sated from touch-hunger, her silky hair on his shoulder and her own hands on his chest, and he thinks on hearts and second chances._

 

_"What are you doing?" she asks, some shyness still, despite everything._

 

_"I'm learning you," he says, and she smiles._

 

* * *

He made a vow, and Marian is his wife.

 

He loves Regina, and he wants to be with her.

 

Marian deserves better than someone who does not love her.

 

Regina deserves better than someone who would break a vow.

 

If he cannot find even what is right anymore, how can he even know what to do?

 

* * *

 

_"Robin, I get it," Little John says, "it's Marian, but there must be another way to heal her. No one can steal from the Dark One, you're being an idiot, it's impossible."_

 

_"You have so little faith in me?" Robin says, because what else can he do but try?_

 

* * *

 

He tries to reason it mathematically, as though that will solve his hopelessly tangled thoughts:

 

Roland will be fine either way. He was raised by the village of the Merry Men and though his life will be different now he can only gain in mothers – one or two where once he had none – and would be hurt more by indecision than any particular hard and fast choice.

 

If he abandons Marian for Regina? One loved one hurt, one less hurt.

 

If he abandons Regina for Marian? One loved one hurt, one less hurt.

 

It's a cruel arithmetic and the only tie-breaker is himself. If he leaves Marian he will be happy with Regina, but guilty, and if he leaves Regina he might one day feel right with Marian, but will be heartbroken to have lost Regina. It seems as much a tangle as it ever was, but deep down he knows it's made his prevarication clear and his heart breaks for it.

 

* * *

_He holds her heart in his hand and it is strange, wondrous, terrifying, like holding Roland when he had been so small, a weakness and a strength all in one. It is black and warm and pulses an even beat, light fracturing through bright red, a beautiful vulnerable prism. He should not see it as more than it is, only a last-ditch play to win an unequal fight, yet she gave it to him, trusts_ him _. She plunged a hand into her own chest – blasé and barely wincing while he reached for her, horrified - and ripped out her own heart and passed it on to_ him _. In the waiting darkness from which she may never return, he stands over the earth that hides it and knows he will not see himself fail her._

 

* * *

 

"Is there no other way?" he asks Little John, finally.

 

"Than what?"

 

"Than choosing between them."

 

Little John is scarcely more caught up on Storybrooke events as Marian, thanks to his time as a monkey, and Robin's relationship with Regina in the Enchanted Forest was... different, so it should hardly be a surprise to him when Little John laughs in confusion.

 

"Mate, it's _Marian_. What -?"

 

Robin has never felt such a fraud.

 

* * *

 

_She smiles when he kisses her and it drives him to kiss her more, hungry for the happiness on her face and the fierce knowledge that he put it there. Again and again, he presses his lips to hers as she stands in his arms so lithe and steady and he feels addiction bite truly when she meets him and lingers, the perfect teeth of her smile melting to insistent lips, dark eyes alive and intent as they fix on his face. It seems impossible to stop and yet they must, for Roland waits, and yet there is time for one more, always, just... one more._

 

_"You approve of my kissing even with heart back, then?" she says, eyebrows raised in good humour._

 

_"Unquestionably," he says, "though I should probably re-check."_

 

* * *

 

He goes to bed, checking on Roland and Marian on the way, knowing he will think nothing new and productive tonight.

 

He thinks his head is full of too many thoughts to fall asleep easily but he finds when he finally lies in bed that he begins to drift almost immediately, and lets himself dream, as sleep properly beckons, that it is Regina he will choose. Marian was gone, dead, all being equal it's Regina he wanted to follow, Regina he can't help but be aware of, Regina he wants to touch and comfort and be comforted by in turn. He is under no illusions, he knows it it Regina he loves now, and as he falls asleep it is to the dreams of himself and Regina and Roland that he dared to dream before, that he dares dream now he will not have to lose for a cleaner conscience, heart expanding like a balloon.

 

He wakes in the morning with a rock in his belly and a sober calm in his head, the tangled emotions of yesterday something cold and undigested, because he knows it is not the choice he can make.

 

* * *

 

_He took her trust and he failed her and that sits on him as heavily as it ought. It is chilly and true night beyond the fire that blinds him, and he blinks up to see her stumble in high-heeled shoes on forested ground, the first time he sees her without anticipation in his heart, a heavy self-pity drowning the voice that is usually so glad to have her attention, that wants badly to be as special to her as she is to him. She looks tired, almost wild, and he feels that on his conscience too._

 

_"I promise you, I will get it back," he says, desperate for some ladder out of guilt._

 

_She kisses him, and he can barely comprehend it._

 

* * *

 

Roland is as taken with Marian at breakfast as he was the previous night, though somewhat shyer, initially, an intriguing stranger more threatening in the familiarity of the morning routine. Marian tries to help cook and Robin knows her desperate to find her footing, but she is unfamiliar with the gas stoves they now use so by the time Roland has stopped sticking to Robin's side she is already being shooed away and it is easy to gratify both of them and send Roland over with instructions to show his new mother the ropes.

 

Marian drinks Roland in, talking for a long time as the camp wakes with Roland bouncing up and jumping down again, long past when he usually trails after Friar Tuck with firewood like a duckling, past even when he usually pesters Much to give him important tasks in cooking. Roland must like her a lot, to ignore such things, and in this morning of dread he is grateful for it.

 

He watches his wife and his son and wonders then whether it even makes any sense. Marian knows him and loves him, and knows him too well to be mistaken in his feelings for her. This right choice, can they ever be happy with it, in the long-run? He owes Marian happiness, is this truly the way to achieve it?

 

Then Friar Tuck appears bringing firewood without his little helper and there is a threatening tantrum, but Roland is a sunny boy at heart and Much quickly diverts him with letting him carry people their breakfast serving of porridge so it never fully breaks. Marian looks to Robin, abandoned and at a loss, no doubt wondering why he should let her founder so, but he finds he has no answer. The life Robin made for Roland as a single parent is gone now, he knows as little about how things will be as she. He had honestly thought Roland would forget, this once, but he has procrastinated long enough.

 

"Roland!" he calls, and his boy runs up distractedly, "I've got an errand to run but Much would fall apart without you. Do as he says, yes? I'll be back soon."

 

Roland is used to it and barely pays attention long enough for Robin to ruffle his hair before he's running off, and Much grins at him beyond the fire as Roland starts to scold the poor Merry Man who thought he could serve himself breakfast without a little boy's 'help'.

 

Robin turns to Marian. "I need to go to town this morning, to talk to Regina. Will you be alright here, with Roland, until I get back?"

 

She looks up at him with enough real worry that he knows she knew his struggle and must know it wasn't her he wanted to choose. "What will you say to her?" she says hesitatingly.

 

He laughs darkly, bites his lip. "I hardly know."

 

" _Robin_ ," she says, sympathy breaking through, reaching out a hand.

 

He flinches away before he can stop himself. "Sorry," he says, sighs, "I'll be back soon. I'm sorry."

 

* * *

 

_He steps forward and knows her affected, open and intrigued and standing ground in her space that he might enter it, eyes following his every move, anticipatory. He reaches past her and snags a bottle by the neck, pulls it down and finds her close still like she's been hypnotised, as willingly mesmerized as he was himself only moments ago. There's a deep stillness between them that says everything, so close, and he catches glimpses of her soft and human in the dim space they share, shoulders and hips and fingertips on glass, body warmth and the deep-seated thrill of desire._

 

_"What about this - is this magical?" he asks, and why bother to be subtle?_

 

_"Not exactly," she says, and smiles.  
_

 

* * *

 

He cannot help but doubt himself as he walks:

 

Is he being selfish?

 

Should he – _can_ he – put his honour above Regina's heart?

 

It's wouldn't be right to put his own feelings above Regina's in such a way, not when the result would be such hurt and the alternative such happiness, but is it selfish to put that which is right above that which is loved, purely because he's too weak to stomach the alternative?

 

Guilty pleasure or righteous misery -

 

Is it weakness? Is it cowardice? Is it penance?

 

* * *

 

_"You're a monster!" the man says, clutching at his cash._

 

_"Maybe," says Robin, "maybe not, but how would that help you?"_

 

* * *

_Is_ it even right? Might all this be solved if only he was wrong all along?

 

But he swore, he chose long ago, and it is right to keep such promises or what is the very point of them? Trust and truth are important and though his mind is confused with so much sophistry they are pillars of his world and he will obey them.

 

He's made no promises to Regina, aloud, at least. An understanding, implicit hopes and trust and feelings, but nothing stated, nothing out loud other than that of the return of her heart. He would not have them mean less for being silent for all the world, but now he's forced to break _something_ to someone are they not more... fragile? More meaningfully precious and less gut-wrenchingly necessary?

 

The very fragility of those promises makes him yearn to keep them even more, to let the delicate things grow as they might, but it is a choice too close to his own weak selfishness. Does he hesitate because it would be right to keep faith with Regina, or only because it would be his happier, preferred choice? He cannot but think it a slithering masqueraded excuse: he cannot trust it and he cannot trust himself, so he will not.

 

(But how can he even think to go through with it?)

 

* * *

 

_"You don't have to!" Robin says, a brash eleven years old and desperate._

 

 _"We know," the men laugh, "you think_ you're _gonna change our minds?"_

 

* * *

 

He hesitates at her office door, some uncanny awareness making him good at guessing where she will be, his heart spitefully looking forward to seeing her despite the reason.

 

He knocks and prays that his treachery that will be felt by only him - let Regina have loved and misunderstood him. Let her have misjudged his character so that he might be a man to see a wrong and never seek to fix it, that he might see pain in a loved one and be unaffected, that he might take a woman to bed with a destiny and a future before them but yet feel no understanding. Above all, let her not realise how he fails her.

 

He knows as soon as he sees her face that it is a false hope: she had heard his unspoken promises and worse, she had believed them.

 

("I am a monster."

 

"So what went on between us..."

 

"My feelings for you were - are - real.")

 

His talk with Regina is worse too, in other ways, because while she unhappily doesn't doubt _him_ , she doubts herself and doubts his feelings, and when he cannot bear that unnecessary hurt and tries to reassure her of these things, at least, in the vanguard of breaking her heart, instead he brings her false hope and she believes that strongly too.

 

("But my vow remains.")

 

It's as messy as last night, and this time, it really is all his fault.

 

He leaves as she tries to hide her tears, unable to offer comfort for a pain he caused his... _soulmate_ , trying to make it easier for her as he has manifestly failed thus far. He pleads her understanding though he knows he has no right because despite everything he cannot bear her misunderstanding, that she should think he _doesn't_ love her, strongly, unbearably, or cannot see that this choice is not a happy one, that she is not the only one who will suffer, that it is not easy, not better, not anything he wants, that above all she is not _alone_ though she is left so and she _is_ loved.

 

("Otherwise, what kind of life am I living?")

 

And what kind of man is he, indeed, to hurt a loved one so?

 

* * *

_She is so beautiful in despair he is half in love with her already, and half-deep in self-hatred that he should find such a thing attractive, though undeniably he does. She smiles love and relief in her tears and his heart breaks for her and the misery she broadcasts, his own grief ragged in sympathy, his hope spilling out as desperate kinship at that sheer capacity of feeling._

 

_She leaves him stuck and he calls her name that she might give him another chance to help her - he cannot think past the desperate prayer that if she will only let him, only talk a little more as they have been talking, that he might reach her yet. She wears loneliness like a cloak and she need not ever again, not if she only dares to live, not if only she returns._

 

_He has only just met her, but he would give her that._

 

* * *

 

He knows as he walks away that he does not love Marian as he ought and might never love her as he undeniably loves Regina, knows that he will probably never lose that love for Regina, but he made Marian a promise long ago and now owes her every happiness, and if that happiness is with him then he owes her that chance too.

 

He who held Marian's death on his conscience, he who loved her once so deeply, he who vowed a thousand times to the universe he would do anything to get her back – he of all people cannot break a promise because she was dead but is no longer. Marian is alive, and it is a miracle, and he _will_ honour that.

 

His feet are heavy as he hits the street but his shoulders light, and every step he takes threatens to twist and take him back to Regina, to kiss her as he had wanted to and assure her it is real, she is good, that they can - they _must -_ be together. Her hope captivates him and her vulnerability burns him and his mind is empty and quiet at last with the heavy knowledge that he has broken her heart and he _loves_ her, and his choice now irrevocably lies between them.

 

It is a queer sort of guilty relief. It is done, and he need no longer fear that he will weaken and waver. He finds himself welcoming his share of the unhappiness with a fierceness that surprises even himself, only wishing he could take it all, even this lesser guilt unbearable.

 

He made Regina cry because his gut told him he must. (Because he couldn't bear the guilt.)

 

To choose her would have been the weak thing, the selfish thing, the happy thing -

 

(He must be better.)

 

* * *

 

_"She's the one then?" Little John ribs, "Marriage? No other woman but her - forever?"_

 

_"It's Marian," Robin says easily, "I made that choice a long time ago."_

 

* * *

_"I'm sorry," Regina says, all sympathy, a future opening before them._

 

 _"I would have walked through hell to be with my Marian again," he says, and he thinks, but now I have_ you _._

 

* * *

 

When Robin was young he tried to change people who did not want to be changed, tried to right a world that did not want to see that it was wrong. It made him legendary, made him an outlaw, and – he hopes – made a positive difference in the world.

 

He reaches camp and Marian is there waiting, deep in conversation with Friar Tuck while Roland plays at their feet. It's a lovely picture he has yearned to see many times, his wife and their child and a dear friend safe and well and _alive_ , but Roland sits nearer to Tuck than Marian, and it's Tuck the boy looks to for guidance, not Marian, and Robin wonders whether Marian will ever be more a parent than the other Merry Men, the small wrong thing with the picture (the husband in love with another).

 

The world is an unfair, unkind place still, he knows, and that unkindness is in himself as much as any, and even when he fails to make anything better for anybody else he will settle for improving only himself, the one thing he can always control. Even when it is impossible, even when he knows it unrealistic, even when it is the last thing in the world he wants to do, he has seen too many wrongs because people think goodness too difficult and it _is_ possible, and so he must _try_.

 

It's not better, it's not happier, it's not at all what he wants, but he'll be damned if he does not force himself to be right, most of all.

 

* * *

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would love to hear reactions/thoughts! Chapter two will focus on Robin's second choice in 4x07, so more actual Regina/Robin interactions then.


	2. Hearts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Marian lies frozen because he does not love her enough. He is not allowed to think on Regina." 4x06/4x07.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for ridiculous delay! At one point it hit 25k and it turns out I'm a really slow writer. (4x06 snuck in too.)
> 
> I don't think we know where Marian's body is being kept? (I haven't seen beyond 4x08, I'm so behiiind.) If she turns out to have been somewhere else, ssssh, that's ouat being stupid, just pretend they moved her temporarily.

 

* * *

_"Are you ready for Round Two, dearie?" the Dark One asks, eyes as sharp as his knives._

 

_"I wouldn't want to impose," Robin says, shakily, because he knows no-one can endure forever._

 

* * *

_She breathes deeply and stands tall, resolved and capable and nervous, arms bare and smooth and face so beautiful and missed, and he knows he shouldn't feel relief to be near her at such a time but he does. Her resourcefulness and his trust in her something solid when his world repeats a tilt. She has always been so easy to read, whether pleased or displeased, an open book he stands next to and trusts absolutely to rip out Marian's heart where she lies, and now she is blank and resolved it tells him nothing but just how capable she really is. She punches into Marian's chest as she once plunged into her own and he flinches, ice breaking loud and the very image of violence, but she is firm and unwavering and his faith does not shake._

 

_Her hand wrenches in Marian's chest and it is physically abhorrent, hand disappeared where no hand should go, but worse is the understanding that it didn't happen this way before, that her face frowns and that something is wrong, that her arms strain and the ice might trap her too. For one long horrible moment he stops breathing to think that he will lose her, but then she's free and she smiles down, and he is weak with relief, and she cradles his wife's glowy red heart in her hands._

 

* * *

_("We have to stop fooling ourselves," Marian says, "I'm only getting worse, Robin -"_

 

_"I won't let you die," Robin swears, and sees her fear match his own.)_

 

* * *

Robin's a little bit angry when he confronts Regina outside the ice truck.

 

Most of it he knows is unfair – he misses her and founders though he has no right to go from Regina's full attention to barely acquaintances – but there's a thread of anger he thinks defensible that despite all else she should not even grant him audience and now tries to lie about it without even bothering to meet his gaze. He thinks it his own fault for tactlessness in a delicate situation, for telling her he loved her when his wife lay half-dead between them, so although he is not sorry to have told her he acknowledges the fault in the vague thought that if her anger is written in silence his confession might make it speak aloud.

 

It turns out he's wrong:

 

("That's what I'm trying to tell you: I'm not sure I _can_ figure it out. Robin, I'm sorry, but if you truly want to save Marian... you're gonna have to forget about me, and find a way to fall in love with your wife again.")

 

He has been complacent, this past week, trying not to think about how little Marian's illness affects him and focusing instead on how much he trusts Regina to fix it.

 

He regrets that now.

 

* * *

 

They have been in Storybrooke nearly a month, and between the Wicked Witch and the Snow Queen they have not fully assimilated yet – the curse provided them with clothes, supplies and scant petty cash but not houses or Storybrooke skills, so they continue to live in the forest as they used to, living off game and the small money the sheriff's office pays them for their forest patrol.

 

He is grateful to Emma for it, (and for saving Marian's life, for helping to stop the Witch, for working with them well and being a better sheriff than he is accustomed to,) but he begins to wish quite strongly she were not always around when he gets his revelations.

 

"So, you'll, uh, keep watch on the truck then?" Emma says, clearly awkward as he stares sightlessly after Regina.

 

"Of course," he says automatically, "We'll continue patrols and let you know if we find anything else."

 

"Thanks," she says, after a very slight pause, and then she is leaving too, tramping through the undergrowth.

 

"So," Alan says, standing at Robin's shoulder, "What now? Do we continue looking?"

 

_What now indeed?_

 

He has watch shifts to reorganise, he thinks. The woods are far too large to patrol properly and now they've found the ice truck they have better reason to believe themselves living cheek by jowl with the Snow Queen, and also need to keep watch on the truck itself. The Merry Men are perfectly proficient at guarding their camp but this sort of sustained patrol/watch schedule is not really what they're trained for, and it will be a slightly awkward adjustment.

 

(It is difficult to think about Regina's words.)

 

Consequently Robin spends the first twenty minutes or so after Regina's bombshell somewhat mechanically shuffling watch rotations to incorporate a watch on the ice truck, and finding the men he has spread about to advise them of their altered shifts, over and over again as they complain and don't pay attention.

 

It's not only them causing the problem, though.

 

"Are you alright?" Friar Tuck asks, when Robin makes his third mistake, giving Will Stutely first one schedule then another.

 

"Fine, thanks," Robin answers, and in truth he does feel it, somehow.

 

Friar Tuck frowns at him.

 

Friar Tuck is not in ignorance long, however, because Robin overhears Alan quietly saying, "He had a talk with the Queen," to which there's such a general hum of complacent enlightenment from all around that Robin begins to wonder if he has a band of eavesdroppers and not thieves. Their lack of discretion frustrates Robin no end – they could at least try not to do it in his hearing.

 

"Alan, Tuck," he says, forsaking his schedule, "you can take the ice truck first while we spread out from here."

 

He feels somewhat himself again to hear them groan without looking – this, at least, is normal.

 

This, at least, is straightforward.

 

Because how do you force yourself to fall in love with someone else?

 

Marian is... half-dead. Half-alive? Marian _waits_ , and of course he truly wants to save her.

 

But how can he go about it?

 

Regina had made promises and he had held onto those assurances like a talisman against his past, and now that she leaves him alone and squashed beneath the weight of Marian's life he finds himself once more trying to fight an intangible foe for her life and he is tired before he even begins. His preliminary thought is regret that he should have let Regina shoulder it this long - he had to ask her, of course, was right to ask her, but hadn't realised just how much of his own share she was lifting for the both of them until she left him the full breathless heft of it now.

 

He is _tired_.

 

They search the truck.

 

The sheriff and Regina have already searched it, of course, and they are magic users chasing a magic user so Robin thought it wise to let them go first, but the Merry Men are a party of thieves and they know how to find things meant to be hidden. They check again, just in case, warily and methodically, but don't find anything of note. They spread out to continue searching the forest, instead.

 

The full meaning of Regina's words – that Marian will now likely never wake – sits awkwardly in Robin's mind. He cannot believe he will succeed, he knows who he loves. Regina has delivered news of his wife's death this morning. An unkind and unsympathetic part of his soul does not know how to care, and says that Marian appeared to live for two and a half days and it has now been more than twice that, and if she never reappeared what would it even change? It is a tiny part, though, and he seems to wake up in rebellion against it because if there is even a _chance_ he must take it –

 

His chief wonderings about Marian these past days – buoyed by immeasurable faith in Regina – were at the lack of guilt he feels over his comparative lack of distress. He supposes it was inevitable that stress would catch up eventually.

 

He can't -

 

He cannot countenance failure but there's dread, not hope, beneath his purpose. He's tried this before, after all, in two different ways – fought illness for Marian's life, attempted True Love's Kiss – and both times he's failed, overall.

 

His past is repeating.

 

(But Marian did not die of illness.)

 

(But Marian did not _die_ – there are other truths.)

 

By lunchtime he is glad to pause the search he's struggling to pay attention to but cannot be as sociable as he normally is. Roland is full of the exploits of the morning – he made a staff for distaff training and is he still not old enough yet? Robin praises the slightly crooked stick and regains, sort of, the energy to think properly.

 

Forgetting about Regina is impossible and he won't do it.

 

His love for Marian was not enough this past week; he must try harder.

 

* * *

_"Name and contest?" the official asks, barely looking up from his papers._

 

_"John Stork, archery," Robin says, because delusion is sometimes necessary._

 

* * *

 

He goes to see Marian, slipping quietly and easily along hospital corridors to her room, through her door unnoticed without impediment. There's value in trying the obvious first and, this time that he can control it, he really doesn't want an audience.

 

Marian lies in a dim room heated too warmly for the weather, monitored by thermometers not designed for the purpose because she ices over other equipment where it touches her. There's nothing much they can do for her but it's more than he could do at camp - they monitor her, constantly, and if there should be a change in her temperature they can treat her for hypothermia. It's a magical ailment with a magical cure so it seems unlikely that she'll need it, but between the convenience of ambulance stretchers and the slim chance that medicine can help, it seems as good a place as any.

 

He hesitates as he approaches, rubbing the back of his neck and staring at her, struck by a badly misplaced sense of betrayal at the thought of what he means to do. He ignores it with some hint of guilty anger because even if it were right (and it's not) he kissed Marian once with Regina only an arm's length away, he cannot possibly think to grow prudish now.

 

She lies motionless, her features obscure and bloated and waxy and blue, and he's seen drowned men before and it's not the same but it's somehow similar enough, and it's a difficult thing to look into her face when his brain screams that surely to look so she must be dead.

 

Now she will be, forever, if he cannot love her as he ought.

 

He thinks of Marian's fate as he reaches over, finally, fingers sticking slightly to the ice of her cheek as it tries to freeze them together and painful with the unnatural chill. His love must be enough and the need to save her gives his love for her new fire, because this is Marian, so full of compassion and mischief and sense, and she should be awake now exploring this new town with Roland who grows older without her by the day. She should never have suffered this, she deserves better than to have her life constantly stolen and always on pause.

 

He loves her and has loved her, so he breathes the cold air she has chilled close to her body and pushes away all other thoughts (all other _betrayals_ ), pressing his lips to hers and trying to ignore how they numb almost instantly on contact. He yearns for her to warm and soften under him, for her to open her eyes and breathe and think, for her to _live_. Surely it is enough?

 

_Marian_ , he thinks, and knows hope.

 

But his lips ache with cold and hers are as unyielding as ever, and he sticks again, frozen to her, as he moves to pull away. It is a joke that reality should care so little for their circumstances that he should have to run fingers dipped in a lucky cup of water along his painful lips to free himself, but he does, a cruelty that she is more ice now than flesh.

 

Unhappy failure sinks his heart through his diaphragm.

 

His love is not enough. (Did he truly expect anything different?)

 

He must try harder.

 

* * *

_"Oh?" Robin says distractedly, "Will my Wanted posters no longer answer?"_

 

_"Don't be an idiot," his fence says, frowning, "You just used to be more... cocky."_

 

* * *

 

He takes Roland out to the harbour, hoping to find some better mood or at least clear his head because he has kissed Marian twice now and is at a loss, twisting, with no idea how to proceed, and all his instincts just clamour uselessly for Regina.

 

It is probably actually procrastination, though, who could think on such a problem with an energetic child in tow? It is definitely also guilt, because he cannot think he will be able to spend as much time with Roland in the coming days (weeks, years? _God_ -) as he ought, now that he carries Marian's illness alone.

 

Roland is an easy boy to please and Robin was not exaggerating when he told Marian how much Roland enjoyed this foreign world. Robin knows very little about boats and finds himself inadequate for half his questions, but they muddle along regardless, spotting the big boats and sounding out words on life buoys and warning signs, Roland making up wild stories about the purpose of each boat and Robin trying to make educated guesses about fish. He has a persistent battle to keep Roland from climbing the railings and bollards since Roland is used to more lenience when climbing on trees, but Robin is slightly paranoid of the dark choppy water and the organised mess of a working harbour in a way he doesn't usually worry about Roland in the woods.

 

He looks for Marian in Roland when his boy chases after seagulls, a time gone now when he saw Marian in Roland everywhere he looked, his eyes, his chin, his joy, his very existence in the world. It is harder to see now that he has seen the two together, he seemed to see Roland in Marian, not the other way around, and Roland is too much his own person long without a mother for Robin to find in him any reminder he looks for - all he can think of is that Marian doesn't even know Roland, and that Roland is not like her, and it is his responsibility and he fails in it.

 

The salt air is cooler and foreign to him and knots Roland's hair badly enough as he runs around that it would amuse Robin to think of its now necessary wash if he didn't have more immediate concerns. Roland is unbothered by it, unbothered by everything, and it sits on Robin's conscience too that Marian should be in hospital and Roland should barely even remember she exists, though he cried so terribly when she fell.

 

Robin is still haunted by the way Roland cried so terribly when Marian fell.

 

It was to be expected that he would cry, his new mother falling unresponsive to the floor and Robin clearly terrified, the assembled townsfolk all rushing forwards loudly talking at once, too much for any young child, but he seemed to calm somewhat with Dr. Hopper when Robin ran for Regina. Then Robin had failed in a kiss and meant to leave Roland properly with Little John, and Roland's tears had started afresh with a vengeance, refusing outright to be left behind, the two of them prying Roland's arms from Robin's neck while Robin hovered, desperate and torn, between Marian who was dying or dead back in the office and Roland who cried and clinged to him.

 

_"Ssh, Roland,"_ Robin had said, delaying as he rubbed Roland's back. _"There we go. We've all had a bit of a shock, yes? But I'll be back as soon as I can."_

 

_"I've got him,"_ Little John had said, so serious as he cradled Roland to his chest. _"We'll be okay, won't we, little man? Robin, you can go."_

 

If True Love's Kiss were ever possible, Roland would never have had those second tears.

 

(And these are his strongest memories of Marian, now.)

 

Today Roland laughs high-pitched and easy, and but for the nightmares Roland had not two days since, Robin might think he doesn't even remember. He has not asked after Marian at all, after Robin's first return and his awkward _"Mama's going to stay in town for a bit, okay? She's not very well at the moment."_ and Robin is forced to consider whether Roland really understands what a mother even is, whether he thinks she's another stranger contracted for only the length of a job, which she must have seemed, really, when it comes down to it.

 

It is a sorry thought - Roland should know Marian better. He already liked her, in short days they had got on so well and Marian had lit up to be with him in all the background disorder of their scant couple days, Roland would have loved her truly, given only a little more time, Robin knows it. Robin has not and will not take him to visit Marian in the hospital, and perhaps he does Marian as great a wrong by it as his inability to wake her, but a less hopeful part of him ruthless for his boy will not see Roland more attached to a woman so very likely dead, and feels no guilt that Roland should be spared dreaming of blue.

 

Roland is happy today though, and Robin is glad of it.

 

Eventually Robin must turn back and start the unenviable procedure of separating Roland from seagulls and seagulls from Roland, the boy never this interested in forest birds but apparently adoring of the thieving shrieking coastline equivalent, but he is no more ready than his boy yet. It can wait.

 

He begins to wonder whether he will lose Roland to a navy if he's not careful, and is fiercely grateful that Storybrooke appears to have none.

 

* * *

 

_"You worried I've pinched something?" Will Scarlet asks._

 

_"Not at all," Robin says, taking his hand in oath, "You're one of us now. For life."_

 

* * *

 

He really should have known better than to have taken them home through the centre of town.

 

"Can we get ice cream?" Roland asks.

 

Robin winces, "No ice cream today, I'm afraid."

 

"But -"

 

"Roland," he says more firmly. "Not today." (Not _ever._ )

 

It's easy to get dark in thoughts of hatred for ice cream and he wonders as he steers Roland firmly away from the closed ice cream parlour why the seemingly-friendly Snow Queen had targeted them in particular with such a smile on her face – she knew of Marian's recent resurrection, did she think it made her a better target? Was it just a slow day? Why them of all people with such _spiteful_ timing?

 

Then Roland, with his own perfect timing and no hint of comprehension, hanging off Robin's arm letting Robin take most of his weight, says, "Can we go see Regina, then?"

 

This conversation really isn't fair.

 

"Regina's very busy at the moment," he says, with the ease of long years lying and the visceral counter-reaction of never lying when it's important, "It's just you and me today, my boy."

 

Roland opens his mouth to speak again and Robin is slightly surprised to feel an actual shock of dread slice down the centre of his chest at the sight of it. Robin cannot argue with his son about wanting to see Regina but being unable to, not today of all days, and between ice cream and the horrible half-guilt, half-empathy that Roland should have asked for Regina before he asked for Marian (though Robin has a sneaking suspicion Roland merely thinks Regina an easier mark for ice cream), Robin honestly doesn't think he can face whatever else might come out of Roland's brain right now.

 

So Robin grabs Roland before he can speak, swooping him off the ground to the sound of whoops and his giggles until there is nothing and nobody in the whole world for the breathless Roland but his Dad who swings him upside-down in the middle of the Main Street and tries to forget that their duo was a trio for a while.

 

It works, a little, in the easy warmth of Roland's affection and good temper, but then they pass the hospital on the way home, Roland up on Robin's shoulders, and whatever overlying calm this time had prospered evaporates completely.

 

Roland may forget but Robin cannot be allowed to, and Robin must think so hard and so well on Marian (and so little on Regina) that magic itself is born from the love that results - Roland forgets in the wrong direction as it is.

 

(Robin envies him.)

 

* * *

 

_"I'm not sleeping very well," Mulan says quietly, "I thought it would be easier."_

 

_"Love can be a difficult thing to rush," Robin says._

 

* * *

 

He roots out his sparse keepsakes of Marian's belongings, back at camp, things he managed to hold onto even though they travel so light because there was a time his wife was dead and never coming back.

 

A book, a line ink portrait, a miniature pottery pig and some letters; that's all. He used to have more but their lifestyle is not kind to keepsakes, and the pottery pig only survives because he had let Roland look at it at exactly the right time and it had been swept up with his boy in an emergency camp move. The pig is a lucky symbol, in the Enchanted Forest, and it has survived when nothing else of Marian's childhood remains, and Roland is very taken with it.

 

It's no good though, Robin knows even as he picks up the letters barely needing to read the words that it will not be enough. He is over-familiar with these objects and over the years has worn the associated emotions smooth - now they prompt only the soft warmth of nostalgia and his retrospective love, (even the remaining hurt of loss stuttering out with the knowledge that she isn't lost, not quite, not anymore,) and he has kissed Marian twice now, he knows that softness is not enough.

 

It is nothing like the hot joy that leaps in his heart when Regina smiles, after all, nothing like the shivery contentedness of Regina's company, not even like the rough ache his heart breaks with when he thinks of Regina now - they are incomparable.

 

It is ridiculous because it's not as though he doesn't love Marian, truly – he does, he always will – but it is not enough to save her life, and that is a harsh scale of measurement.

 

It is something, at least? A good foundation to work off? That he loved her as he loves Regina now, once?

 

He doesn't believe it – he is lying to himself.

 

* * *

 

_"The thing about stealing is... " Robin says, drunkenly, in a pub, "is that it's just so_ easy _."_

 

_"Yeah well," his drinking partner says, "some of us have a more con...ventional concept of ownership."_

 

* * *

 

It occurs to him that his task will only get more difficult as time goes on.

 

He barely remembered her correctly when she was impossibly real and alive in his arms, their short couple of days in this land swamped by his mis-remembrances and the real understanding of how fallible memories of a person can be. His memories will only grow weaker with time, delicate emotions worn dull with every thought he starts habits of retracing – will True Love's Kiss work if the love is manufactured and based on unintentional delusion?

 

He cannot believe it.

 

It is difficult enough already, at camp. He barely sees Marian anywhere he looks, she was present so briefly, her bedding is stacked away and her small touches long gone (the only thing remaining her bow still sitting out where he hadn't yet heart to re-pack it), and there is no habit and conspicuous absence to remind him. His future with Marian too was too brief and chaotically-born to really imagine or miss, and with the disruption of Marian's return and Regina he had had no idea what that future might even look like.

 

His men might have been hope. At first after Marian froze they had been too careful with him, not mocking him when he deserved it or speaking easily about the wrong things, and he had known to feel their eyes that they remembered his grief for Marian, last time, and the strain of her illness before that, and were looking for that same grief or strain in him then, and he had felt transported back in time to see it.

 

But they had not found it and have long since returned to normal. They had expected him to be stressed and strained and brittle with fear, and he has indeed been stressed, this past week, just not... desperate. Marian's illness lay like a ghost on his mind, so painful with echoes but lighter for trust in Regina and the awkward thought that Marian had never truly been not dead. It had been resurrection, he worried over, not salvation.

 

(She's not dead, he reminds himself, again, she looked it and he felt it, but she's not, not yet, and he must remember that.)

 

His camp is just... normal. Without her in it. Life goes on without her as it had for so many years and it makes it difficult to remember she was ever briefly alive. She hadn't even had time to try to fit in properly yet, to leave him memories of seeing differences through her eyes he can't see through his own. He knows there are differences to their camp set-up since Marian's time, even he still adapts to the Storybrooke changes, but he cannot see where they might be. He cannot remember what the camp was like when she used to live, and remember her better for knowing it.

 

It's like a dream.

 

This morning he woke forgetting that she was ever briefly alive; this afternoon he must fall back in love with her.

 

There is little time to be lost.

 

* * *

_"Let us in, you pillock!" the guard calls. "We've captured Robin Hood! Nice and easy, and – hey! Wait, no, stop!"_

 

_"Sorry for the inconvenience," Robin says, because no other man's law can hold him, anymore._

 

* * *

One time, he and Marian had been hiding in a tannery from the Queen's guards, and Robin had looked across at Marian, careful and close beside him, and Marian had said...

 

Had said...

 

Had said something that made him laugh.

 

(And then had died.)

 

* * *

 

_"For god's sake, Robin!" Little John pants, "We've past the gatehouse, we must be clear by now!"_

 

_"Keep going," Robin says grimly, "The gatehouse was only the first outpost."_

 

* * *

 

_Love_ her, he thinks, come on, you brute, _remember_.

 

* * *

 

_"We'll be nearby to help when we get there," Robin promises, "Good luck."_

 

_The Queen says nothing, her eyes lingering on his as she turns away._

 

* * *

 

What if remembered love is not enough?

 

How can he love her differently and new from when he knew her before her death, when she is _exactly_ the person she was at her death? Time has passed for him but not her.

 

She has been back little more than a week, and frozen for more than half of that time.

 

He cannot possibly think to succeed.

 

(Somehow he must.)

 

* * *

 

_"What sort of tale would you like?" the storyteller asks, "Adventure? Fate? True Love?"_

 

_"All three!" a girl near the front yells, and a young Robin listens, spell-bound._

 

* * *

 

His love for Marian had been so easy, once. He knows Marian, it should not be so difficult now just because he has learned to live with her loss and found happiness in another, Marian has not changed and that should be a good thing.

 

He has changed, though, and when he thinks of the light-heartedness of the joy they had had together, even the failures and the arguments so sure that their future would always exist to share between them, he cannot help but see her partnered with another man who wore his younger face but would not think as he does now. It should have been easy, as it was last time, he never had to work to love Marian - it would have been impossible to stop, but now it is frustrating. It makes him think...

 

_"What makes you think you know me so well?"_

 

_"Well, for one thing I'd be fried to a crisp right now if you didn't."_

 

...He tries to think of good times and just finds he misses Regina.

 

* * *

 

_She is everywhere he goes these days, haughty and imposing, so it barely surprises him to run into her in the corridors. They are long-practised at ignoring each other but today they brush shoulders in their unexpected bypass, pressure glancing his upper arm and his sleeve snagged ever so slightly by the fabric of her dress, and she must be shocked out of practised indifference by the touch because she looks him in the eye when he turns to look, dark eyes bright and clever. She is not angry or affronted as she might ordinarily be and he feels the strangeness of that curiously in this thin empty corridor in the heart of her castle where a man she dislikes disrupted her thoughts. She stares at him as though he were a puzzle and simply twists her body away, and he wonders, mildly irritated, if she forgot as she strode down the centre around blind corners in a twirl of cloth that her castle is not so empty anymore. He wonders, as her eyelashes flick away and he breathes a forgotten breath, if she forgets that it's a place she's returned to and not her past, and if she will always think him a danger._

 

_"I beg your pardon, your majesty" he says, though she ran into him._

 

_"Thief," she scorns, and the moment is gone._

 

* * *

"I need your help," he says, to his men gathered around the clearing. "I need stories about Marian, I need to remember her better."

 

They stare at him.

 

"What sort of stories?" Little John asks dubiously.

 

"Anything that would give me a good idea of her character - pretend it's a wake, how would you describe her to someone she'd never met? What do you know of her that I don't, already?"

 

They look at him concerned with all the hesitancy of a couple days ago when he first returned without her, those who met her only last week all the more so.

 

"Are you _sure_ you're alright?" Friar Tuck asks, frowning.

 

_Marian lies frozen because he does not love her enough._

 

He cannot tell them. It is too private a failure andhis guilt still too fledgeling for exposure – he cannot tell them Marian's life is in doubt because he is in love with another.

 

"I'm fine. She's a target, and we're looking for a weakness. Who is Marian?"

 

His men must think him mad.

 

(Their stories do not help.)

 

* * *

 

_"What's up, Robin?" Little John laughs. "You look like you wish they'd caught us."_

 

_"The whole time," Robin says slowly. "Three days, I didn't think of Marian once. I ...forgot her."_

 

* * *

Much sends them for water. They wash in the river generally and do their main laundry on the banks, but water is always needed back at camp and Robin and Little John were long-practised in the Enchanted Forest at hauling it back in casks or large tar-proofed leather flasks.

 

They have plastic, in this realm.

 

It's a lot lighter, and nearly all the way to the stream a preoccupied Robin ignores (for the most part) Little John's lengthy verbal approval of it, humming distracted agreement when Roland chimes in about zippers and velcro. Roland really ought not to be coming along, since when they carry the water back their access to weapons will be severely limited and they won't be able to carry him, but the boy has far too much energy still when the afternoon light is shifting quickly into evening, and Robin would rather see him put to sleep easily tonight.

 

(Roland likes water trips, anyway, and Robin knows he's at risk of overcompensating but Marian is ill and Robin might be unable to save her – he will do anything so easy to make his boy happy, today.)

 

They reach the stream eventually and set filtered siphons into the plastic jugs – Roland taking off downstream with a stick to industriously poke at some mud – and Robin and Little John settle in to wait. The curse had provided them with Storybrooke equivalents for a lot of their usual gear that they are grateful for, but it did have some odd moments – the filtered siphons are welcome additions, though slow, but the jugs have curiously awkward handles for carrying and they're not terribly stable on uneven ground, and the combination of both of them means for a protracted babysitting experience that it is difficult to enjoy.

 

In fairness, the jugs didn't bother them when they still used the well, but when mentioned to Regina in passing she had been so concerned about the prior magical properties of the water hitherto unknown to Robin (the well plaque was poetic but hardly fully explanatory), that he didn't think it worth the risk and now they hike slightly further afield, awkward handles and instability and all.

 

(He misses Regina's advice – he misses _her_ – and thinks with a painful affection of the momentary horror on her face at the thought that he might have turned into a frog.)

 

(But he must not think of Regina.)

 

Little John moves a siphon to an empty jug, accidentally upsetting the flow, and has to restart it while Robin still crouches, holding the other end to the water.

 

"What's going on, Robin?" Little John asks quietly, when the water's running easily again. "Is Marian...?"

 

Robin looks back at what he's doing. "She's the same."

 

He leans over slightly to reach a better spot.

 

"Well that's good, isn't it?"

 

_Not if she stays that way forever._

 

"Yes," he says, with an effort, hand splashing wet where he loses attention on the water level, "yes, that's good."

 

"Then what's with the weird questions and the fuss about remembering?"

 

Robin frowns, glancing across at John briefly, his friend watching him frankly from where he sits on a boulder supporting the jugs, dappled in the late sunlight and trustworthy and familiar. Roland is out of quiet earshot beyond so Robin looks back at what he's doing.

 

"Regina can't save Marian," he says, eventually, dropping the words with as little conscious understanding as possible.

 

"What?"

 

He sighs, shrugs, tries to drop the answer as lightly as the first. "The only recourse remaining is True Love's Kiss."

 

Little John does try to be tactful, Robin knows, but heaven help him he's not very good at it. "Well then," Little John says, baffled with an obvious and terrible relief, "What's the hold up?"

 

Robin thinks better of trying to confide.

 

* * *

 

_She is soft and quietly happy when she kisses him, a lightness to her that is new and wonderful and feels like a reflection of his own feelings, something unlooked-for between them like a vindication of hope. They watch each other as they pull away, still close enough to kiss again, full bodies flush and half-resting against the wall, and when she asks him what he sees in her he thinks of potential and the world seeming a brighter place and speaks of second chances.She mentions her heart and the cares of the outside world begin to flow in, that he lost her heart to one who wishes her ill, but with her beautiful face peaceful so close to his own it is all muted, and he wonders if she can possibly share such a feeling, whether she feels his proximity as he does hers, what it can even be like to live without a heart._

 

"Feel? Yes, I can. Just not... fully," she says, "It’s difficult to explain."

  
  
"Then don’t," he says simply. "Use mine for the both of us."

 

* * *

 

"There are other magic users," Little John says as they make their trudging way back, their jugs full and heavy strapped together across their shoulders, Roland wandering on ahead. "You don't like the Queen's solution - find another. What's got into you?"

 

Robin would give his right _arm_ for another solution.

 

"None I trust so well," he says, "None so motivated, and very few as powerful or knowledgeable. The sheriff is a novice who defers to Regina, the snow magician Elsa concurs with Regina, the Dark One denies familiarity altogether and the fairies never helped us before – tell me, whom exactly _should_ I be asking?"

 

"You'll lay Marian's life on the Evil Queen's word?"

 

" _John._ "

 

Little John had been incredulous enough the first time True Love's Kiss didn't work, angry on Robin's behalf and almost betrayed by the implication that Robin didn't love Marian enough and grasping at David's ready-made excuse like a drowning man, thinking it a fluke that True Love's Kiss should've failed and one almost too easy to remedy. Now he distrusts Regina ("a hell of a thing to gamble, Robin – she has a history of removing obstacles!"), and rails at Robin's inexplicable behaviour, ("some sort of morbid storytime -") and Robin begins to fear that underneath it all Little John already suspects the truth but cannot face it.

 

"I trust Regina," says Robin, "With my life, with your life, with Marian's life, with _Roland's_ life. Do you _understand_?"

 

Little John doesn't, beginning to list all the things about this he doesn't understand, and by the time he reiterates his over-used thought ("it's _Marian_ ,") for Robin it is too much ("I _know_ it's Marian!") and their raised voices have drawn Roland running back. The argument is at an end, thank god, because Robin cannot carry Little John's fears as well when reality hews too close to his own.

 

It is not Regina who is letting Marian down.

 

* * *

_"You need sleep, Robin, you're barely thinking straight. I can keep an eye on her breathing awhile – it's not your sole responsibility -"_

 

_"I'm staying," Robin says shortly, because in this, it is difficult to trust another._

 

* * *

 

Roland flags quickly after a bathe and their evening meal and so is easy enough to get into bed, for once, though Robin stays a little after he falls asleep.

 

The others sit around the fire as they always do and on any other day it might salve Robin's thoughts to sit with them, but he is preoccupied and unwilling to be distracted from it.

 

(Marian waits for him and he fails her.)

 

His men cannot help him and he needs to focus on what will.

 

Thinking on schedules he switches watch with Gilbert last minute to take the early night watch instead of afternoon tomorrow. For a couple of days after the Wicked Witch was secured Robin had thought to take them off night watches, thinking them unneeded in friendly Storybrooke and knowing them unpopular, but the snow golem taught him otherwise.

 

Gilbert is perfectly happy to switch and immediately rejoins the fire, and Robin breathes an unconstrained breath because it's hardly as if Robin is mad keen on night watches himself but it's at least nominally productive to free up time tomorrow so that he can go to town again and see Marian. It's his only actual progress thus far. Roland will be learning ballads with Alan after breakfast as normal and Little John will take him after that despite their argument (will be here for him tonight, if necessary, drinking but not drunk), so Robin hopefully won't have an excuse for the procrastination of today.

 

He takes his (stolen) crossbow and heads for the camp perimeter, navigating more by sound than sight, twigs and moss and leaves and bare earth easily distinguishable as he walks through them in the dark. He settles behind a multi-trunked tree on a knoll, a good view over the area but well-hidden, the air still and thick, and thinks to wait there a while.

 

An owl hoots.

 

Marian waits on him and he must save her.

 

* * *

 

"You think you can bring down the Wicked Witch with sticks?" Regina says.

  
  
"Well, I'm certainly going to try," Robin says, because the impossible sometimes works.

 

* * *

 

After Marian had died his love for her had been inescapable – how does he not find it now? How can it evade him? He had been sick with it once, drowning in guilt and constant painful reminders that he would never see her again, would never be able to hear her opinion or see her joy and that she did not exist anymore, the world empty of the most important thing. He had been desperate, had asked of wise people though he knew the answer already – "Are you sure there's no way to bring back the dead? Is there nothing you can -"...

 

_"Is there nothing you can do?"_

 

_"There might be something. But only if you trust me completely."_

 

There is a way this time.

 

Can remembered loss can count as love? He cannot believe that it will be enough to feel echoes of the cloying, dampening unhappiness he once felt. It was born from love, truly, but was about him and not her. There must be more - Regina has bought him time but he must be the one to make use of it.

 

* * *

_She crouches over Marian and he asks her for any other hope, and she sighs and rises, her eyes open with a trepidation that means she must have some idea, and he is grateful and worried and she says - "There might be something. But only if you trust me completely."_

 

* * *

 

He thinks of stories he tells Roland but they are little more help than his men's, too often repeated and not jagged enough, too nostalgic and not enough fire. Her loss is not right but her loss extended and bled back into her life – the last months of her life were a whirlwind of illness and recovery and childbirth and death – his memories are clouded by their warping effect.

 

Only weeks ago he could have told a thousand new stories about Marian, could have remembered small habits and normal moments, but this necessity seems to drive them from his mind and he's sorry with it but...

 

_"I'm sorry."_

 

_"Don't be – nothing's worth the loss of a child."_

 

She had hated open-fire cooking but had loved the company around the fire at night. She had an easy knack with her bow and enjoyed shooting but was less adept with a knife. She had climbed trees in her childhood and driven her parents mad, and they had spent a night up a tree once hiding from guards that she had slept so easily in he had feared she might fall out, ropes and all.

 

He has told all these things before, they seem summaries to him now.

 

* * *

_She walks over-quickly and he barely needs to tell her what has happened because she sees enough, her haste melting to a tempered defeat and his earlier conflict a straightforward guilt at the sight of it, and he apologises because if there had been any other way, and - "Don't be," she says, "Nothing's worth the loss of a child."_

 

* * *

He is so close he can almost taste it when he focuses on the emotion of their early days, full of the wonder of Marian and delight of her laugh, and the way she had brought a smile to his face just to think of her, like... like Regina, now, with her perfect smile and her sharp humour. No, he has to -

 

_"We have to stop meeting like this."_   
  
_"Did the Charmings send you to give me a pep talk? 'Cause I don’t do well with pep talks."_

 

...He has to stop thinking about Regina.

 

* * *

 

_"You can't_ force _me to like him!" Robin says, incredulous and eleven._

 

_"He's your cousin," his mother says, "I can ask you to try a damn sight harder."_

 

* * *

 

He cannot seem to believe that Marian is real enough _to_ love, the harder he thinks the more fictitious it all seems. She died and now she waits and that knowledge is in the way, and...

 

_"Don't get in my way."_

 

_"Oh, I wouldn't dream of it."_

 

(This is ridiculous.)

 

* * *

 

_She's sceptical but amused and he finds slightly surprised that he likes her, and she considers him in the torchlight after a long moment and finally relents, and he is glad, but she twists her head in warning and says - "Don't get in my way."_

 

* * *

 

In the end the only thing Robin manages is to more accurately define the problem:

 

He doesn't want to forget, he doesn't know how to forget, and he misses Regina something chronic.

 

It is foolish because he had chosen Marian over Regina, had let Regina go, but finds his mind drifting back to that spark of betrayal in the hospital and becoming... reluctant.

 

He cannot seem to commit to it.

 

He _wavers_.

 

He promised Marian his heart once when it was already hers, but he has reclaimed it, clawed it back from death and guilt and healed it and given it to another. How can he give it again, so quickly?

 

He had not intended to give Marian only a hollow facsimile of a marriage. He had known in choosing her that he must put her first, henceforth, give her first priority in every expression of affection and every consideration of futures, looking for lovable in her and putting Regina second. He had meant to choose Marian truthfully, truly to try.

 

He had just never dreamed that he'd need to relinquish his feelings for Regina so immediately, so completely, so _infallibly_. He had thought he would have time, and the privacy of his own feelings.

 

It is Marian's _life_ , of course he must do it. It is the right thing to do.

 

(But his heart does not listen to 'must'.)

 

* * *

 

_She is overly careful and probably nervous when she meets Roland properly again in Storybrooke, and he remembers enough stories of her son now to guess at why. She smiles at Roland confidingly but glances back at him, but Roland beams up at her pretty in Storybrooke clothes in a way her Enchanted Forest dresses were too imposing for. Then Roland is demanding to show her around, shows her their tent and their fire and the arrows that are so sharp she isn't allowed to touch them without Daddy, and she relaxes with his boy's chatter and is easily affectionate enough to make his heart glad. She likes his boy, he thinks, and his boy certainly likes her, and when they leave so she can show Roland her town he strokes his fingers gently down the back of her hand in gratitude and her answering smile is a revelation, and then Roland is burrowing between them._

 

_"Come on," Roland says, "You said you'd walk with me, it's a long way."_

 

_"I did," she says, and looks at Robin questioningly, "But I think maybe we can take my car."_

 

* * *

 

He didn't choose Regina, he cannot choose her now.

 

He's not trying to choose her now -

 

Then forget her.

 

I _can't_.

 

(You won't.)

 

* * *

_She is returned and alive, stumbling through the dark chill of the forest with a dancing unsteady light, and though he is determined and flushed with purpose with the thought of the war left to fight he worries for the toll it has taken and the injuries she may hide because she is subdued and almost shaking, distracted and lacking in pretense. She talks of heartless mothers and not appreciating things enough, in shock, maybe, and more revealing than he thinks she'd ordinarily want, and he is shaken with the thought of what kind of life she must have had, what sort of world she must see to turn around, thinks she must have truly expected to die. She looks at him when she takes her heart, focused and serious and intent, and he waits, a distance and yet a shyness to her he cannot understand. And then she grabs his hand and he is half-paralysed, because they have never touched in such a way though they flirted and talked and she set him watch over her heart, and now she holds his hand trapped between her hand and her heart (her warm smooth glove and her warm heavy heart) and his own heart is too hot because this means something, to her, to him, whatever this is, it is_ something _._

 

_"Would you mind holding on to this for me?" she says, so intent._

 

_"You're really going to trust something so important to a common thief?"_

 

* * *

 

Prod.

 

"Daddy."

 

Prod.

 

Prod, prod.

 

Robin wakes, irritable from an unsettled sleep, to the increasing soreness of a tiny spot on one shoulder. His half-sleeping mind swims with déjà vu of unhappy awakenings past, from which after-images of his dreams of Regina shot bleeding and Marian a pregnant corpse emerge confusingly and distressingly, hardly able to sort between past and present but for the distracting and repetitive (painful) prodding.

 

"Roland," he groans, blinking and then screwing his eyes shut in denial, "Oh God, Roland, stop it."

 

Prod, prod. "It's time to get up though!"

 

He gropes blind for Roland's tiny hand before he can prod him again. "I said stop it. It's too early."

 

"But the sun's up!"

 

Robin sighs.

 

Roland is an early riser at the best of times and he still struggles with the concept of earlier summer sunrises, and though in houses Roland can play quietly when he wakes, in the forest he tends to stray and so needs more vigilant supervision when he leaves their tent. There are quiet voices outside where the other early risers are rolling out, and though Roland knows enough to understand that night watch shifts mean daytime naptime and getting up time that isn't getting up time, Robin had forgotten to tell him that he had switched shifts. He's awake enough it seems pointless to mention it now.

 

He opens his eyes.

 

Roland's other hand is about an inch away from poking him in the forehead.

 

" _Roland,_ " he says. "I said _stop_ it. You don't poke people who don't want to be poked."

 

He says it with more heat and honest irritation than he usually tries to direct at his boy, too many images of dead loved ones too real in his mind's eye, and at a time when he's frustrated that Roland doesn't listen it's typical that _that_ Roland should pick up on instantly. Roland's mischievous smile disappears and he shrinks back surprised, face crumpling, and Robin wants to sigh again because if there's anything worse than starting a bad day with an over-eager child, it's starting a bad day with a distressed one.

 

"Okay, come on," he says, reaching a sleep-heavy hand to pull him into a hug. "Come on – don't poke me anymore, alright? We'll get up in a minute."

 

Breakfast-time goes little better.

 

He's not actually as tired as he might be but after such an awakening he feels like his brain is five minutes behind the rest of him and his dreams leave him restless and out of humour, the dread and hopelessness of yesterday unremittingly carried over. Roland takes it upon himself to start digging a cave, which would ordinarily be perfect since Robin is little required in such a task and can take five minutes to catch up with himself, except that he soon discovers that Roland has reasoned that arrows break less than sticks and tries to dig his cave with dangerous limited-supply weaponry, out of the main thoroughfares at least but cunningly half-hidden behind a tent on the way to the latrines like some sort of rudimentary Merry Man trap.

 

Worse yet, in the irritation of the morning Robin has little patience for his own weaknesses, and comes to think on the day before with a kind of mild disgust.

 

Marian waits and he fails her.

 

As breakfast-time forms around him and Roland runs off with Friar Tuck he tries again to think himself into love with Marian and forces himself to think nothing of Regina. He finds even nostalgic love for Marian impossible under the uncompromising necessity of True Love, and is so susceptible to his own desires and so ruthless in cutting off any thought that goes near Regina that he finds in her absence nothing left. He can't concentrate properly on anything else – what is more important than Marian's life? - and so finds himself sitting useless, resentful and bored, wound up with the pressure and urgency of Marian's life but with no idea how to go about it.

 

(It is impossible.)

 

By the time he thanks Roland for breakfast he is uncomfortably humming on adrenaline from too much resolve and too little outlet.

 

He goes for a walk.

 

* * *

_She sits alone on a fallen tree staring at piece of paper, somber and heavy with care, none of her customary acquaintances anywhere about, distracted. Her earlier confidence from the Diner is gone, her spark in the face of the Witch's words faded, and she sits so enervated she is almost a different woman with her retorts, tired and singled out by a malevolence that none of them yet understand. The Witch is playing with her, and succeeding, and he sees her sitting alone and it is an easy decision to sit sideways to her and offer her what companionship she will accept._

 

"How are you holding up?" he asks, slipping the letter out of her pocket.

  
  
"Well, I’m not a flying monkey if that’s what you mean," she says.

 

* * *

 

He thinks to go to Marian that he should try again for lack of a better plan, the presence of her body maybe helping him concentrate. He knows even as he thinks it that he won't actually go – he's still uncomfortable with the misplaced betrayal of yesterday and he cannot want to see her lying there when he knows it will not work.

 

(It is hopeless and will never end.)

 

He finds himself instead in the graveyard.

 

It's still early yet and the sun streams low through the trees and gravestones alike, the clearing made a triple forest of tree and stone and shadow. It's a lovely day, breezy and quiet, and he's lived outdoors enough of his life that even preoccupied he can appreciate it, but the sun blinks in and out of his eyes as he walks between the shadows and he finds himself thinking it's a waste of a day all the same, because time is passing and he's getting nowhere.

 

He spots Neal's gravestone and pauses, distracted temporarily from his mindless frustration by the odd thought that he might once have been Neal's son's stepfather, maybe, and that Regina's boy might not know how far his father had been willing to go to return to him, how much his father had loved him. Would Neal have confessed his love for Regina too, even in such circumstances, if it was him?

 

The painfully fresh-carved stone cannot answer – Neal is as silent as Marian, now.

 

He turns away.

 

Regina's mausoleum rather overshadows the graveyard and he spots it easily with a ghost of amusement for Regina's inimitable style. The door is wide open and he knows she is probably inside, underground and nearby, deep below his very feet maybe, only bones and dead men's trinkets still between them.

 

He did not come here by accident.

 

As though pulled on a string he walks to the open door and slips in silently, his mind blank with the feeling of fate. He frowns mildly at the heavy coffin scraped aside, wondering who here Regina mourns and what morbid thoughts made her put her vault in the graveyard, but his own worries are too heavy and he is not allowed to think on Regina now. He descends cool steps into the stale candle-lit gloom to find her, ready for he does not know what, restless but resolved, hoping

 

There must be _something_.

 

* * *

 

_He spots her immediately, sitting with her back to him, the door rattling and jingling by his side and his breath heavy from his distracted desperate race across town. She is his salvation and his hope, so practically undressed as she turns to him with hair loosely up and bare arms in an unfamiliar style of clothes, and he has so missed her and she comes to stand close, and he feels deep treacherous relief flood his heart as she looks up at him sharply and hesitatingly, smaller than usual and so alive. He has come because he needs her in this most of all, her magic and knowledge and shamefully her very presence, and..._

 

_"What are you doing here?" she asks._

 

_"It's Marian," he says. "Something's happened to her. I'm sorry, I didn't know who else to turn to. I need your help."_

 

* * *

 

("Hello, Regina.")

 

She's a welcome sight.

 

She's also not pleased to see him, no smile on her face and no banked hope in her eyes, just a censure he deserves and a reminder, once again – and he knows full well through every ounce of him as though it is the only fact left in the universe – that Marian will not live if he does not love her enough.

 

("Then why are you _here_?"

 

"Honestly... I don't know.")

 

He tries to explain because he didn't (he did) intend to be here, and he does not understand himself at all this morning, his heart is ruling his body while his mind tries to abdicate from the unrelenting pressure, but she is here, and so is he, and he didn't (he _didn't_ ) come here because she is so lovely but because he trusts her, in this, above all else.

 

(" _Robin_.") she says, soft and sorry and oh, he has _longed_ for her, how can he pretend otherwise?

 

But she continues, shaking her head - ("You have to save her.")

 

Goodness is a bitter master. ("Because it's the right thing to do?")

 

("Because she's your _wife_.")

 

They are words he needed to hear but he had hoped for anything else, she speaks the same words as his conscience and he has _tried_ -

 

She continues, near-crying, because it's hurting her too, _he's_ hurting her too, even now – ("It's torture _")_ – and he would spare her anything but he _needs_ , and -

 

("And for that, I'm sorry!") he says, and it makes it no easier when he faces the impossible, ("But I can't just... fall back in love with Marian, not when _you're_ in my life.)

 

("Which is why I can't be in, your life!")

 

("You're right! But that doesn't change the fact that...") – _that I love you and Marian waits and I can't bear to let you go and there must be another choice –_ all the heartsick indecision of this past week rushes out in stumbled words, ("I _don't_ , know _what -_ to _do_!")

 

She has no patience for him.

 

She is half-disgusted with him, in fact -

 

("You need to forget about me. And start thinking about her.")

 

And then she's gone.

 

He watches her leave, breath caught in his throat with unformed words still left to say, body yearning to follow, unmet desperation making him sick where he leapt but found no answers.

 

Marian waits, and he must save her still, (and he hurts Regina and there is no other way).

 

He sighs.

 

* * *

 

_The rainbow shockwave passes and leaves him a year's worth of memories, of monkeys and a castle and new friendships and of_ her. _They_ had _met before, had spent a whole year in some twisted childish antagonism, and he had liked her and known that she would never be willing to let herself like him. He is near the boathouse where they've followed the monkeys and he knows she ran inside with the others, and he looks for her unthinkingly because it's a year of insults and distrust and pushing him away, and it's always been her choice and she might choose differently now. He hears her voice through a door and she's talking with her son and he is so, so glad for her, to have finally found him and had him remember, if everything else crumbles in the wake of these memories this would make it worth it, and then she says his name and her son echoes it as he pushes open the door, and hope flares against uncertainty and grows brighter with relief when she looks upon him even with her son beside her and smiles, openly._

 

_And yet... "The Missing Year – things a bit rocky between us, yeah?" he says, carefully._

 

_"For some reason you're so much more likeable here." she says, and he cannot help but laugh.._

 

* * *

 

He leaves her vault.

 

She asks him to do the impossible and now he has disappointed her too, hurt her too, _again_.

 

He is sorry for it but finds in his worry for Marian he cannot quite muster the emotions for proper regret. He is over-full of guilt already, so full of it it spills out in anger and frustration because he cannot spare a thought for that right now, his gaze is narrowed and he knows it, but he cannot seem to focus on anything properly but the pressing task of Marian's life and how he is not equal to it.

 

It is too much for him.

 

His best-used talent was always in knowing who to tap for advice and for ability, who could make up the skills he lacks. His leadership is based on it, talent-poaching along with game-poaching, an easy understanding of who can do what job and how, and where.

 

There is no one else for this job. He is unfit for the task maybe, stumbling, at least, and he cannot see what other method to take when his is failing, cannot think who else might know what he misses, can tell him what he fails. Regina tells him to forget about her and start thinking about Marian but he has been doing the latter and cannot fathom the former, and her disappointment in him should be a wake-up and a motivation but it just makes him more desperate still because she makes it seem so simple and it is.

 

(Forget her.)

 

It's just impossible.

 

* * *

_"Robin! I failed, and Arthur... I'm so sorry! I couldn't do it, there was an extra guard..."_

 

_"Rest easy, Much," Robin says, because he knows the boy tried his best._

 

* * *

 

He tries again.

 

Or at least, he tries again to _try_. Regina has made plain what he had wanted to be wrong and now, when he tries to love Marian, he really can only think of what he's giving up.

 

He keeps trying but can't seem to force himself to do what needs to be done, his very thoughts held back from anything but surface minimal, shying away, elusive, because it feels like falling off a cliff and he cannot risk letting go of what (who) stands at the top. He opens his mouth to speak and his lungs stop all breath, he goes to walk to the hospital but finds his muscles lock against him. He just cannot make himself, quite.

 

He has tried twice now and it has not been enough, and he cannot keep risking – cannot willingly sacrifice – his love for another.

 

How _can_ he give it up? How can he give up his love for Regina when she's alive and wanting him, any easier than he gave up love for Marian when she was dead and him guilty, long years before he was able to move on? How can he forget such a precious thing found? How can he neglect such a gift? It is _Regina._

 

There is a ruthless part of him that is stronger than his morals (to be weaker than your weakness, does that make your weakness strong?) and it feels as strong as the very soul of him, and how much more difficult that thought is when he thinks with all his childhood belief in the stories of their land that there might be some very real truth in that. Is it then, a weakness? Is it _wrong_? He does not care, truly, does not worry for what is strength and what is weakness when there is right to be done but it slides between his thoughts and makes them cloudy, every perception of the world off-kilter.

 

It makes it easy to hate in himself what he would not laud but would neither blame in another, because it is not enough to choose the right thing, it must be right to continue to choose the right thing every moment from the first one, and he had thought he was – had meant to be – a better man than one so constitutionally unable to follow through with his decisions.

 

He is not usually indecisive, and he is sick too of wading through this... quagmire of doubts. It is a bitter thing indeed to have made a difficult right choice and find it made nothing by sheer attrition.

 

You were always going to lose Regina eventually, he thinks. You cannot give someone up and expect them not to give you up in turn, you knew that, and you knew when she eventually found another you would hurt anew, you were always choosing this, too, you cannot be surprised?

 

But that's the thing, he thinks. I knew I would hurt, for a while, maybe a lifetime. I could've felt it and never acted on it. I didn't think I wouldn't be allowed even that - I didn't think I wouldn't be allowed even to _grieve_.

 

Regina is alive, it's terrible taste to think such a way when it is no metaphor that Marian may never live again, but though he knows it is only emotions he sacrifices it feels like so much more. How does he stop loving Regina but to lose any sense of who she is and what he has found in her, the way she tries and the way she loves, the way she smiles and the way she hopes? He must lose or corrupt these things to un-love her and that is a heavy loss, indeed.

 

It was enough to lose their future, must he lose their past as well?

 

He knows he must, but his heart is a selfish, immature obstacle and it does not want to.

 

* * *

 

_She walks by his side when they storm the barn, spread out in a line fixed with purpose and determination because the Witch has taken a child and they will not see it harmed, and cannot let the Witch cast her spell. She is nervous and afraid and this is the stuff of magic, prophecy and fate and he cannot pretend to understand it completely, but even without her heart he has seen her strength and her love and her determination to succeed and he finds himself filled with faith unsurpassable that she can do light magic, can make magic from love from her very soul, even without a heart. He stands next to her as David goes for his newborn and is flooded with energy to see the heart he lost next to the child. He is a thief, he can steal back what is taken from her, they stand foolhardily against the Wicked Witch and Dark One combined but he is a prince among thieves and it is right there, a straightforward task he is determined to complete, and stealing is what he does and he knows she can do hers too._

  
  
_"And I've got your heart." he says._

_And she succeeds._

 

* * *

 

There is another reason he cannot bear to visit Marian so soon.

 

He spent too long in her last long sickness unstintingly by her side, as though to make her strong by sheer force of attention while she persistently grew nothing but weaker, that this new sickness seems a nightmare come to life and some scar in his mind from the toll it took last time curbs him for fear of committing so easily and completely again. He saved her, last time, in a last-ditch impossible gambit, but he cannot hurry to return to the days when he could barely sleep for the fear that his drifting thoughts would free her from life. Not when she died anyway, despite everything, so soon afterwards.

 

It _is_ different, though. Last time Marian had been slipping away from him, slowly and inexorably, while he did anything he could to make her stay; this time she lies stable and unchanging, and it's himself he's trying to make stay, to do anything he can think of to stop himself slipping further away .

 

It makes him angry at Marian, _again_ , and so tired of that unfair anger, because he tries so hard but he begins to forget how they ever were happy together, when he forces himself through sickness and grief and guilt and sickness again and she won't stay put, she won't just _live,_ she has given him her very life as a task and he might fail in it.

 

(She might die, _again_ , because of him.)

 

How can he not be terrified?

 

* * *

_She is obstinate and frustrating and so determined to discount him that she will risk her own life to prove him useless. So sure of herself and her magic in the Dark One's castle it never seems to occur to her the danger she's in. He calls out a warning when she makes for the door but she ignores him still, reaching out an unthinking hand, and he's forced to act quickly and completely unnecessarily with his heart in his throat, loosing an arrow past her to reach the door only just milliseconds in time. Sighted along his bow she is nothing but a blue silhouette as the doors blaze alight and a wave of heat washes over them, and he is full-body angry for the risk she took if he were slower to draw or a poorer shot._

 

_"_ That _arrow almost took off my_ head _," she says._

 

_"Well, that_ door _almost took off your_ arm _," he replies._

 

* * *

 

He goes to think harder and he does it with a drink, because he doesn't particularly like himself right now and doesn't want to think about _anything_ , and is a mite tipsy by the time Will Scarlet appears.

 

(Thwack, off the dartboard. ...Sigh.)

 

Being drunk does not agree with his aim.

 

(Thwack, off the dartboard. ...Jingle, rattle.)

 

He lived with Will once, liked him and planned with him and stole with him – Will is a fool to think even drunk Robin would not recognise his footsteps after the bell of the door, nor see him in the corner of his eye. Especially when he had the audacity to steal from Robin only a couple of days ago, tents left in disarray and word from the sheriff that one Mister Will Scarlet had been taken into custody.

 

Mister Will Scarlet, who betrayed them.

 

Anger re-sharpens his drunk-derailed talent (thwack, on the bullseye...), and he has buried the last dart a neat sparse warning from Will Scarlet's face almost before he's finished turning (...thwack.).

 

He recognises in Will an outlet he won't let escape.

 

("I can explain.") Will says.

 

Robin orders him to a drink.

 

Will seems to think they are having a slightly different conversation from the one they are actually having (or the one that Robin intends to have, at least), and in his drunken sullenness Robin has little interest to extend when Will talks of making amends – he has bigger concerns. He is passingly sorry for the ill-temper he spreads around but just... unable to muster the energy to really care. It is difficult to have sympathy or patience for another when you're systematically cutting them away from yourself, difficult to even concentrate on the effect you're having on others when you've tried too hard for a particular effect in your own.

 

Robin is grown callous with old wrongs and self-hatred. ("Because of a woman. And where is she now?")

 

And then he remembers himself, and regrets it.

 

It all comes back to one problem, in the end.

 

He tells Will about first meeting Marian, that lesson he had learnt and that first moment he was smitten, because deep down it seems to say it all, and Will Scarlet, of all people, that clever, good-hearted man who nevertheless threw over loyalty and trust and other people's lives for _love_ , ought to get it. He owes Marian more than Will could ever owe him, but the root of betrayal is the same.

 

("She made me the man I am today, Will. I _need_ to remember that.")

 

And Will tells him a story.

 

("It wasn't easy for her, you know, living like an outlaw. I asked her once, how she gave up everything to be with you. Do you know what she told me?"

 

"What?"

 

"She said, 'there's good in him, Will. And when you see the good in someone, you don't give up on them... especially if they don't see it themselves. And if you're lucky enough to find True Love, you fight for it - every day.'")

 

Robin loves too strongly, so he asks, ("You still believe that? After everything _you_ did for love? Was it _worth_ it?") because for him goodness and love cannot seem to square.

 

And Will Scarlet, that clever, good-hearted man who threw over other people's _lives_ for a love he does not even have to show, says ("Mate, if you find someone you love enough to ruin your entire _life_ for... it's always worth it.")

 

The words hit home: for Regina, oh...

 

He _wants_.

 

* * *

 

_She stands solid at his side and turns away, unhappy, and he glances at her unintentionally but must focus on his purpose, hyperaware of her presence so close and wishing she were gone, far away, wishing this wasn't necessary, wishing Marian were not lying here dying and wishing they were anywhere but this corner of this office where once he and Regina had discovered such hopes and now she must watch him attempt True Love's Kiss with another. He reaches for Marian's cheek and kisses her, long and resolved, and through his thoughts of the life they had shared and the future he had mourned, Regina is there, a silent sentinel he has hurt too much already, who stands behind him and makes his spine tingle, makes his ears strain for the slightest whisper of her movement, makes his heart hurt for her pain._

 

_The others speak ice and gold and reasons why True Love's Kiss wouldn't work, but he knows the truth: his love (his_ choice _) will never be enough, because he is in love with another._

 

* * *

 

Robin sits thoughtful, for a while.

 

Absurdly, he misses Marian cleanly, (finally,) thinking longingly of her faith and her counsel, but it is a familiar feeling, long-practised in the years since her death, because even now he misses the woman who died and who he mourned, not the woman lying half-alive and waiting that he risks never saving.

 

Here, then, was the story he was searching for, and it has brought him the wrong effect.

 

All he can think of is how much he would give up for Regina, if only he would let himself.

 

He wishes, quite suddenly, that it was Regina lying frozen, because he could wake her, he's sure of it, oh so easily. But it is a lie and a bad one, (and maybe Regina is not quite there) because even if Marian never wakes and Regina could be saved in an instant, he could never want – he could never _risk_ – their places switched. Marian is dreadful with scars and ghosts and knowledge of past strain, and how much worse would Regina be, to tear his very soul out, to take hope and glad hunger from the world?

 

And yet, that is still what he must do – uproot Regina's presence from his life and lose her completely – if he has any chance at saving Marian.

 

He cannot lose Regina. He will not.

 

She is his True Love and he sees the good in her everyday, he cannot not fight for her, Marian is right. Regina is in his heart and his mind and even now he misses her -

 

He cannot give her up.

 

* * *

 

_"What are you going to do to me?" Will Scarlet asks._

 

_"Worst thing possible," Robin says, because Will chose love over their very lives and anger runs deep._

 

* * *

 

...And yet.  
  
It is Marian's life, and it is the right thing to do.

 

It is Regina's counsel, to forget her, and he trusts her guidance as much as Marian's. Regina speaks sense and he does listen to her – Marian is his wife and his responsibility and he must honour that. All that he and Regina have done, this past week – all that he has hurt her, all that she has tried, all that he owes Marian - he _must_ save Marian.

 

(Would Marian's life not have been enough on its own? Can he be such a man?)

 

It is a right he does not feel, that reluctance of betrayal all over again, that he should betray Marian by even thinking of Regina but feel that he betrays Regina by kissing Marian. It is disorientating, because he used to feeling what is right by conviction, not fighting his conviction for right. He is misaligned, and not used to it, because for once his head and his gut don't agree.

 

(He _wants_ \- )

 

Nevertheless, it remains the right thing to do.

 

To save Marian's life, he must forget Regina.

 

(Goodness is too often possible, and so he must try.)

 

* * *

 

_"But it's mine!" Robin says, an indignant six year old. "He can't take my things!"_

 

_"Oh, don't be so selfish," the old woman says, "It's his now – you didn't need it."_

 

* * *

 

He leaves the Diner determined, quick solid steps along the sidewalk to do what needs to be done immediately, before he can waver again.

 

He will try, actually and completely, with every last ounce of love in his capacity to love Marian, to be true to her, to be _enough_. He will ignore Regina, will forsake her and forget her, will beat his heart into a true submission to save a woman's life because it is the right thing to do, and because he owes Marian everything, and because Regina is right that Marian is his wife and he certainly owes her this much.

 

Even if nothing else were true, Marian waits frozen on a bed and he _can_ save her, if only he loves her enough, and so he _must_.

 

He _will_ save her, if only he can remember enough.

 

* * *

 

_"But what about Derek?" Robin says, slowing, "He can't run this fast!"_

 

_"Forget him!" the girl says, "His family will help him, surely. It's not up to us - there's no time!"_

 

* * *

 

"Hey, what are you – Whoa!" the doctor, Whale, moves to intercept. "You're drunk, what are you doing?"

 

"I'm sobering. I need to kiss my wife.'

 

"You can't kiss her - she's ice, you'll stick," Whale says. "And she's unconscious, that's not..."

 

Robin growls at him. "It's the only way to save her _life_."

 

"This isn't... " Whale sighs and a nurse tries to get his attention. "Oh, very well."

 

" _Thank_ you," Robin says, and closes the door on him.

 

* * *

 

_"Have... have we met before?"..._

 

* * *

There was a time once he loved Marian deeply, and he can do so again.

 

(How much must he lie, today? Will he ever stop, ever again?)

 

* * *

_  
..."I doubt I'd_ ever _forget meeting you."_

 

* * *

Marian waits, blue-tinged and motionless and impossibly, apparently alive.

 

Robin leans in, closes his eyes and... thinks of Regina, and knows it is futile.

 

He sits down heavily in the chair beside her bed, does not even kiss her and cannot hold her hand.

 

He cries.

 

* * *

Were they ever True Love? Was their love ever enough?

 

They had been contented in one another and so sure in the ways of their world that they were right for each other, Robin Hood and Maid Marian, they were in love and it was real, and he won't second-guess that by diminishing their mornings and their arguments and their triumphs by worrying for the stuff of magic. She married him, and she was his whole world, and they could have lived happily together all their lives.

 

He cannot help but wonder, though. The destiny that shines on him and Regina, that even now seems such a gift, does it punish Marian because they fooled themselves and he and Marian would never have been enough? Would _he_ have never been enough for her?

 

(If she could ever wake would Marian wonder it too?)

 

* * *

To save Marian's life you must forget Regina -

 

(He loved Marian deeply, once.)

 

I _won't_.

 

* * *

 

There seems nothing left to do.

 

Marian will never wake, unless some second miracle occurs, and this first resurrection was a gift he somehow fumbled - in his heart of hearts he cannot believe there will be a second, cannot believe he will succeed. He has failed.

 

Is it over then?

 

Is this it?

 

Did she return for just days to bring heartbreak and disruption? To see Roland grown and undo what he had healed? Is she dead then? Gone? Is this _it_?

 

Or will she linger in half-death, himself chained by false duty to a never-ending vigil, a lifetime ahead of them to save the unsalvageable refusing to believe the truth that sits solid in his gut that he will simply never love Marian _enough_?

 

(He _wants_ -)

 

It doesn't matter what he wants. It's his wants that leave him here at the side of this... this death? This uncertain, unending, unedifying ...death? It should never have mattered what he wanted in the first place.

 

(But it isn't -)

 

It doesn't matter that it's not fair.

 

(And I -)

 

It doesn't matter that he tried. (Though he _did_.)

 

(... _Regina_ -)

 

And he mustn't, above all things, think now of Regina.

 

* * *

_"My first love, Daniel, was killed because of me. Because he_ loved _me."_

 

* * *

 

He sits by Marian's side for what must be a long time, nothing to say or think, just sitting one more vigil in the coolness of Marian's unconscious company, listening to the beeps of machines and the bustle and rattle of the people outside in the corridor, sobriety creeping in and helping his emotions settle.

 

Still, he delays.

 

Whale enters eventually, and Robin sitting motionless at the side of his still-frozen wife must tell all the story there is to tell, so he says nothing for a pause until Robin looks up at him.

 

"I take it there was no success, then?" he asks finally.

 

_He will be a self-made widower, twice over, now. Oh, Marian -_

 

"As you can see," Robin says dully.

 

"We'll keep her here a while yet, don't worry. Storybrooke health insurance is an interesting fiction but we're an unusually healthy population - there's no rush. How're your lips?"

 

"Fine," Robin says, damning them for it. "Thank you."

 

He leaves.

 

* * *

_"Are you alright?"_

 

"No, I'm not alright, but they’re waiting for me – I should go."

  
  
"Wait," he murmurs, pulling her back gently to kiss her. "Good luck _."_

 

* * *

 

He has a thought half in mind the whole walk home but manages to keep his feet on track all the same.

 

She will be in the vault, he thinks, and he wants her above all things in this otherwise unhappy world, but he is a better man than that, still. He must be.

 

* * *

 

_("You think we're True Love?" Marian says, smile audible in her voice. "We could break curses with your larcenous tendencies and my lost bowstrings, create magic itself in our arguments about socks?"_

 

_"Do you not?" he asks, curious._

 

_"I've always believed it."_

 

_He smiles.)_

 

* * *

 

When he reaches camp his men need only see his expression to give him some space, and he heads uninterrupted straight to Roland where he plays with Little John and swoops his boy up, holding on tight, Little John wrong-footed halfway through a mime.

 

"Daddy!" Roland complains, "I was about to beat the sheriff!"

 

"Oh?" he says, half-choking, tears hot and unspilled behind his closed eyelids, forcibly relaxing his grip when Roland squirms, "I'm sorry, Roland, I didn't know."

 

There's a warm hand on his shoulder and Little John moves close. "What's happened, Robin?" he asks quietly, and Roland too has stopped squirming and pulls back to pat at Robin's face where Robin will not open his eyes.

 

Robin can barely think, wretched with a dead wife returned to death and a kiss he could not give.

 

"Nothing," he says, feeling it like truth, "Marian's the same."

 

* * *

 

( _"I stole from Marian when we first met," Robin says, meeting Marian's gaze as she smiles ruefully at him from the side of the fire beyond some of the men._

 

_"Oh?" says Will, "and what were you stealing? Coz it don't seem like it could have been all that valuable seeing as how she married you afterwards for this -" he waves an arm around, "glamorous lifestyle - no offense Marian."_

 

_"None taken," she says easily, laughing when she sees Robin's face (his good humour wars with admittedly childish attachment to his story), coming over to stroke Robin's shoulders in apology. "It_ is _a very_ glamorous _tent."_

 

_Robin huffs in amusement. "It was her horse, actually."_

  
  
_"How romantic.")_

 

* * *

 

They are all very drunk.

 

The Merry Men are, at least, living up to their name and raising havoc by the fire, feeling and imbibing good spirits in the rich familiar smell of smoke and alcohol. Robin himself is uncomfortably almost sober and resigned to remaining so, and Roland is long asleep, so Robin sits to the side sorting through broken arrows and left to his own devices, alienated in the noise and safety of their band by his own mercurial black mood.

 

Marian lies frozen, and she will never wake because of him.

 

He finds an arrow with only a hairline break along the shaft and breaks it slowly and deliberately, the shaft yielding only slightly before splitting and curling, the last strands snapping too suddenly for satisfaction. He breaks the longer section again, closes his fists around them as though he were bending steel, not sticks, every muscle over-tense, and snaps it cleanly.

 

He sighs.

 

He cuts the arrowhead free more sensibly, tossing it into a basket, and discards the splintered shaft with its battered fletching into the pile at his feet, reaching for another. There's little point in petty destruction, he knows, it will not fix anything. He will have to admit Marian dead again or find another way soon enough, either way.

 

The pile of unsorted arrows starts to dwindle beneath his fingers. There is not as much of this work as there used to be now that the curse (and Little John) have gifted them with arrows made of Storybrooke materials, but it's familiar work, and he'll keep their remaining hand-made stock in good repair, at least. This much, he can still do.

 

(Roland will be motherless, the son of an ice sculpture, because of him.)

 

(Regina is alone, has lost some spark, because of him.)

 

(He _wants_ \- )

 

Then Alan starts a bawdy love song on his guitar and Little John starts a beat for it on his knees and Robin is up and moving without fully realising what it is he means to do.

 

He grabs a bag and checks on Roland, the singing muffled but still plainly audible in their tent and Roland sleeping like a log despite it, and packs overnight gear into the bag trying not to think about what he's packing in preparation for. Marian depended on him and he failed her and he cannot bear to think about that, and he's not supposed to be thinking of Regina either but can't – _won't –_ forget her, and their whole world is built on love and the ideal of it and the very real magic that results from it, and _why_ should he not he seek out his soulmate? _Why_ can he not be selfish, too? _Why_ must he deny himself from even fighting for his True Love? It isn't...

 

It is the height of bad taste to heed Marian's unwitting guidance in such a way.

 

All this time he has tried to remember his love for Marian and it turns out he has remembered his trust for her better. He loves Regina, sees the good in her easily, Regina is his soulmate and maybe he will still be forced to let that go but he _must_ fight for it too, at least today, can he not fight for the love they share instead of always tearing it down? Can he not make such a choice? He _wants_ -

 

"Much!" he calls, finding the man near the latrines and coming off-watch, not a big drinker and a reliably early riser for breakfast cooking shifts, "Could you possibly keep an eye on Roland for me, tonight and early tomorrow?"

 

"Sure, Robin," Much says, curiosity flicking across his eyebrows, "I was thinking of bed anyway, much as I'll get any sleep with our resident carolers in full swing. Shall I take your tent tonight, then?"

 

_Can he really do this?_

 

By the fire Friar Tuck is drunker than the rest, as always, but better functioning with it, too, and when Robin hesitates on his way past with one last best counter-instinct, he sees Robin's bag and calls out over-loud, "Robin! You're leaving us! Why?"

 

_Because I love her._ "I have someone to talk to."

 

"And not be back all night, hey?"

 

Shame should burn him a new spine but it doesn't, and the wrong-stepped absence of it lets his last resistance melt away, leaving unsettled energy to lift him in its wake. He had made a decision without realising it.

 

"Maybe," he says, some nerves of audacity making his chest flutter for the ruin he may reap. "Good drinking, Tuck."

 

Tuck toasts him messily and the others, sozzled and ebullient, uncomprehending, catch the toast and make it ring. It grates his shallow patience that they should be so incognisant of the inappropriateness of the toast, and it's only the careful knowledge that he himself has kept them in the dark that stops him reacting badly.

 

Tuck guesses enough though, and loved Marian once with long-held friendship – does he really not realise what he toasts Robin on to do? Have they all forgotten she even lives (lived?), in their good moods and liquor? Marian deserved so much better than all of them (himself most of all) and he is angry and ashamed of Tuck's behaviour in a way he isn't of his own, yet, because this is the _very_ least they can do for her. Robin struggles and they aid his wrong? If Marian never wakes will any of them even _mourn_?

 

It's an ungracious thought borrowed of a guilt he does not yet feel.

 

He leaves before he can have worse.

 

* * *

_It can b_ _e no easy thing to bare yourself so and it does not surprise him when she summons him coolly, chin lifted and manner condescending. Was she so as an Evil Queen, in these chambers and these clothes and this look? It is a screen, but there is some other truth to it. There is no trace of the woman who teased and cried and angered and returned with zeal, she is sober now, calm and distant and feigning disinterest and he knows she would prefer him long gone. Arrows gleam in her hand and he is amused by the impractical gift – is he to fence them in this reconstructing economy? Is he to hoard them against better times? Is he to use them as soft weapons or keep them as a memento? It is an insult, a reference to his perceived greed and a rejection of their common ground, and he takes her meaning as easily as the dismissal in her gaze: she thinks to bribe him. She let him closer than she wished because she thought she would never return, and now that she lives to regret it she... hates him._

 

_"I believe our debt is cancelled." she says, with a smile that doesn't reach her eyes, "You must have forest thievery to be getting back to – we would be loathe to keep you."_

 

_"Thank you," he says, thinking of his boy, "but I fear that we must linger yet."_

 

* * *

 

His anger drains quickly, and the energy too. He has too finely balanced a mood after the hospital to sustain proper rage, he walks an emotional tightrope and cannot help but let extraneous feelings slip from his fingers lest they unbalance him completely.

 

Even the possibility that Regina will not take him (much less the possibility that she will) is too much for him to consider. She may be stronger than him, she may simply not wish him in such a way, he may wrong _her_ in this too, but the fall he'll take is a dangerous road and he's too exposed to think too deeply on it. He watches his feet, dim shapes in the canopied gloom, and ignores the rustling of unseen bats. It is late – she may not even be there, and could he – will he – really seek her out further afield? _Is he that far gone?_

 

He knows only that he needs her, and that he loves her, and that today he has reached some end.

 

(Regina is not his anymore to take, he knows, but he's always been a thief.)

 

It's a wrong, but one he doesn't feel and somehow, today, that makes all the difference.

 

* * *

_The Dark One stands before him, so different in this land, and demands her heart though he must know Robin will not give it. Roland stands at risk and an arrow twists in mid-air, and Robin hesitates long seconds in a swirl of indecision because the Wicked Witch cannot be allowed to succeed but his son's life is not a sacrifice he can ever pay. He stares at the Dark One, her heart close and vulnerable, wracked by ticking seconds and a choice that makes no sense, and fear closes solid and cold in his chest and sets panic lapping at the edges of his thoughts, and then the Dark One's fingers droop and he's out of time. He is stuck, between the impersonal right and the imperative personal, and he made an oath and he meant to keep it, and sharp metal will fly at his boy's face, his boy will die, and -_

 

_"Wait," he breathes._

 

* * *

Soft light spills from the open door of her mausoleum, barely visible in the strong moonlight, and he does not pause as he enters and descends.

 

He knows he cannot do this and still be a good man.

 

But then, a good man would've been able to save his wife, a good man would listen to his own better instincts, a good man would not put his own selfish heart above another's _life -_

 

Today, he is not a good man.

 

* * *

_Marian waits, so he leans in and closes his eyes, and..._

 

* * *

("Why... am I getting a sense of déjà vu?")

 

* * *

 

_You_ must _forget her -_

 

* * *

 

("Regina.")

 

* * *

 

_...But he has made a different choice._

 

* * *

("I have lived by a code my entire life – steal from the rich and give to the poor; be _truthful_ , _righteous_ , and good – I have tried to live by that code every _day_ of my life -")

 

* * *

 

_...and knows it is futile, and sits down heavily._

 

* * *

 

Sober resolution sits like relief on him when he finds her in her vault, a lonely figure with a bowed head who sighs and shuts her beautiful eyes, closing her book slowly to look up at him, unimpressed. She rebukes him, with a voice high and soft and careful with delicate weight, and she must think he delights in ignoring her pain, that he does not listen to her at all to return so boldly. He answers her with conviction, thoughts clean and easy with the certainty of what he has done and now means to do, and he is filled with a guttural need to make her understand, to let her know the weight of the decision he has made, but though he sees her soften he knows she doesn't follow.

 

"Then, why are you _here_?" she asks.

 

The answer is easy - "'Cause today is _not_ one of those days."

 

He moves for her and kisses her uncomprehending frown like a bow-string released, his body and mind so long at war and that in this thankful moment of consensus he can see nothing but her, feel nothing but her, think of nothing but her and the welcome soft of her lips against his and the warmth of her mouth opening and her beloved jaw solid and real in his palms. He can act, finally, after too long fighting in his own mind, and her hair is soft against his fingers and her chest warm against his forearms as he steps into her and she sways and arches back with him bent to her and she answers, presses back to him, and oh, he has _missed_ her, and he _loves_ her, and he could cry because she really _is_ a very good kisser, and he pulls slightly for the sheer joy to push back again, drinking in the feel of her skin and her own earnest fervor, because she is here and he is finally kissing her and if he could throw all that he feels and has felt into one kiss that she might know it this would be the one, and his poor heart finally, finally stops aching but it hurts instead, his whole chest constricted with it, because he feels too strongly and it feels as if to break with how much he loves her.

 

She rises up and stands and her arms come around his shoulders, and then he can pull her close in his arms, too, finally. He can cradle her head with the hand he buries in her hair, finally, and pull her flush with the soft solid curve of her lower back. They stand and sway, and it is like dancing, and he could never let her go, and she kisses him back like she has hungered for him too and found in him the same necessity, that same precious truth, that he has found in her. He has spent this last week, this last day, trying (to try) to forget, and he could never have succeeded because she is joy, she is hunger, she is calming rest from the world and his own best and worst voices, she is home.

 

He needs her and he loves her.

 

_And he will kiss her forever because he cannot let her go, cannot think to give her up -_

 

He will not forget her.

 

* * *

_"I'm in love with someone else."_

 

_"You are?"_

 

_She smiles._

 

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought while I was writing the first chapter that the second would be much easier, hahaha, no, I WAS WRONG, I KNOW NOTHING, THIS THING HAS BEEN EATING MY BRAIN FOR WEEKS, so I really hope this doesn't fail any expectations. Honestly it should be edited down more and there's lots about it I still don't like but I can't work on it anymore. Also, while there are more Robin/Regina interactions in this chapter, the rest of it kept growing so ridiculously it's probably proportionately about the same, so, I'm sorry, I really did try, I hope you like it anyway, it hates me.
> 
> If Robin gets another big choice in the show I'll probably do a third chapter (I have a third aspect I want to explore), also I kinda really want to do a 4x08 interlude/epilogue because Robin has been such an unhappy bunny and 4x08 would frankly be a relief to write. So, this story is provisionally finished but won't necessarily remain so. Thanks so much for reading! 
> 
> (Comments are very welcome, I'm really curious to know what people think - I've been stuck alone with this thing for a month, so. )


End file.
